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Heroes of the Reformation 

A Series of Biographies of the Leaders 
of the Protestant Reformation 

EDITED BY 

SAMUEL MACAULEY JACKSON 

Professor of Church History, New York University 



Each Crown Octavo. Fully Illustrated 



FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York London 



Ifoeroes of tbe "(Reformation 



EDITED BY 



Samuel ADacauIes Sacfeson 

PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY, NEW YORK 
UNIVERSITY 



Aiatpeerets x a P l<T l L °- TiJiV ' TO °^ o-vrb irvevfia 

DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, BUT THE 8AME SPIRIT. 



Balthasar Hubmaier 




BALTHASAR HUBMAIER. 

THE ONLY KNOWN PORTRAIT. FROM AN OLD WOODCUT. 



Balthasar Hubmaier 



THE LEADER OF THE 
ANABAPTISTS 



BY 

HENRY C. VEDDER 

PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN CROZER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



" Die gottliche Warheit ist untodlich, und wiewohl sy sich 
ettwan lang fahen lasst, geyslen, kronen, creiitzigen und in das 
Grab legen, wiirdet sy doch am dritten Tag wiederumb sygreich 
uferston und im ewigkeit regieren und triumphiren." 

Hubmaier, Die ander Erbietung, Schaffhausen, 1524. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Gbe "Knickerbocker press 

1905 






! 



/J2J/3// I 

Copyright, 1905 

BY 

HENRY C. VEDDER 



Ube IRnicfterbochctr ipress, IRew Ifforft 



PREFACE 

ONLY two biographies of Hiibmaier have 
hitherto appeared. The earliest of these, 
by Dr. F. Hoschek, was written in Bohemian and 
published in Brtinn in 1867. It is very valuable for 
the later years, and contains large extracts from the 
writings published at Nikolsburg. For the earlier 
years it is less trustworthy. An English translation 
of the text, omitting notes and illustrative matter, 
was made by Rev. W. W. Everts, D.D., and pub- 
lished in the Texas Baptist Historical Magazine for 
1891 and 1892. The other biography, in German, 
is by Dr. Johann Loserth, Professor of History in 
the University of Czernowitz, and was published at 
Briinn in 1893. It has never been translated. 

I have leaned heavily on these authorities, and 
gladly acknowledge constant and great obligations 
to them, especially to Loserth, but the great re- 
liance has been upon the writings of Hiibmaier 
himself. The collection of these in the library of 



IV 



Preface 



the Rochester Theological Seminary is nearly com- 
plete, and this collection has been generously put at 
my disposal by the librarian, Rev. Howard Osgood, 
D.D., by whom it was first made many years ago. 
But for his assistance and counsel the study of these 
writings would never have been undertaken, and 
could not have been successfully prosecuted. A 
number of the booklets Dr. Osgood long ago trans- 
lated, and he has permitted me to use these trans- 
lations freely in this biography. Other of the 
works I have myself translated, and the pile of 
manuscript has grown to such proportions as to 
arouse the hope that at no distant day a volume of 
the works of Htibmaier may be published, which, 
if not absolutely a complete edition, will contain 
everything of importance that his pen wrote. 

During the summer of 1904 was fulfilled a long- 
cherished purpose of visiting the principal scenes 
of Hiibmaier's labours: Augsburg, Ingolstadt, 
Regensburg, Waldshut, Nikolsburg. As might be 
anticipated, few actual memorials now remain of 
labours so remote, and these few are much altered 
by decay or "restorations," and yet such a visit is 
by no means valueless. Most of the illustrations 



Preface v 

of this work were gathered by this means, and in- 
vestigation of the scene of long-forgotten events 
was profitable in supplementing knowledge gained 
from documentary sources, and correcting errors into 
which one who had never seen the localities would 
naturally fall. 

Besides the authorities named, the other works 
that have been found directly helpful are sufficiently 
mentioned in the foot-notes to the text. The actual 
composition of the biography has occupied such 
time as could be spared from other engagements for 
about a year, but it has in reality been twenty years 
in the making. Let us hope that readers will not 
find it heavy in proportion ! 

Crozer Theological Seminary, 
May, 1905. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE iii 

BIBLIOGRAPHY xi 

CHAPTER I 

THE ANABAPTISTS AND THE REFORMATION . . i 

CHAPTER II 

THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 
1481-1520 
Birth and education — Doctor of Theology — Preacher 

at Regensburg — At Waldshut . . . .24 
Excursus on the Spelling of Hubmaier' s name . . 66 

CHAPTER III 
HUBMAIER AN EVANGELICAL REFORMER 

I5 2 4 
Eighteen theses — Waldshut 's quarrel with Austria — 

Flight to Schaffhausen — The peasants' war . . 69 

CHAPTER IV 

HUBMAIER BECOMES AN ANABAPTIST 
1524-1526 
Discussion of infant baptism — Anabaptism introduced 
at Waldshut— Fall of Waldshut— and flight to 

Zurich 100 

Excursus on the Act of Baptism among the Anabaptists . 142 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER V 

HUBMAIER AT NIKOLSBURG 
1526-1528 

PAGE 

Moravia in the sixteenth century — Progress of Evan- 
gelical religion — The Lichtensteins — Hiibmaier's 
great success — His literary activity — Characteris- 
tics as a writer — Troubles at Nikolsburg: Hans 
Hut, Jacob Widemann — The Lichtensteins inter- 
fere — Treatises: The Freedom of the Will and On 
the Sword . . . . . . . .146 

CHAPTER VI 

THE TEACHINGS OP HUBMAIER 
1524-1527 

Hubmaier a preacher rather than a theologian — Doc- 
trine of the Scriptures — Theology — Calvinist or 
Arminian? — Anthropology — Differs from Luther 
on the will — Soteriology — Ecclesiology — Eschato- 
logy 178 

CHAPTER VII 

HUBMAIER THE MARTYR 
1527-1528 

Persecution begins in Moravia — Arrest of Hubmaier — 
Hearing in Vienna — Imprisoned at Greisenstein — 
Interview with Faber — The Rechenschaft — How 
far did he recant? — Final condemnation — The 
closing scene 219 



Contents ix 

CHAPTER VIII 
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MORAVIAN ANABAPTISTS 

PAGE 

Effect of Hiibmaier's death — Troubles increase at Nik- 
olsburg: Schwertler and Stabler — Expulsion of 
the socialists — The new colonies and their prosper- 
ity — Persecutions of 1535 — The protest — The 
Dietrichsteins and persecution at Nikolsburg — 
Final disappearance of Anabaptists from Moravia. 245 

APPENDIX " ON THE SWORD " . . . .273 

A FORGOTTEN HYMN OF HUBMAIER's 311 

INDEX 322 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Balthasar Hubmaier . . Frontispiece * 

The only known portrait. From an old woodcut 

Dr. John Eck 22 

Traditional portrait 

The University of Ingolstadt, as it is To- 
Day 26 

A Lecture-Room (possibly Hubmaier's) in 

the Old University of Ingolstadt . 28 

Church of the Virgin, Ingolstadt . . 30 

Memorial Tablet to Dr. John Eck, in the 

Church of the Virgin, Ingolstadt . 34 

The Cathedral, Regensburg ... 38 

Here Hubmaier was chief preacher, 15 16-1520 

Interior of the Regensburg Cathedral . 42 

The tomb in the nave is in memory of Bishop 

Philip William, Duke of Bavaria, and was 

erected in 1598 

The Modern Neupfarrkirche, Regensburg 46 

The farther part, with the towers, is part of Hub- 
maier 's Chapel Zur Schonen Maria 



xii Illustrations 

Dominican Monastery, Regensburg 

Waldshut and the Rhine 

Waldshut 

Showing old tower and Hubmaier's church 

View of Schaffhausen .... 

The Munster, or Chief Church of Schaff 
hausen 



Portrait of (Ecolampadius . 

From an old woodcut 

Portrait Statue of (Ecolampadius 

Cloister wall of the Cathedral, Basel 

HULDRICH ZWINGLI .... 

From a mezzotint by R. Houston 

A General View of Modern Nikolsburg 

View of Nikolsburg in 1678 

From an old print 

Castle Greifenstein, as it Appears now 

Vienna in the First Half of the Seven 
teenth Century .... 

The Tower of the Castle at Nurnberg, in 
which Anabaptists were Imprisoned 



Illustrations xiii 

PAGE 

A Room in the Tower at Nurnberg . . 256 

Instruments of Torture at the Tower of 

Nurnberg 266 

Facsimile of Hubmaier's First Appeal to 

the Council of Schaffhausen . Appendix 
Original in the Schaffhausen archives 

Map: The Scene of Hubmaier's Life and 

Labour At end 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

HUBMAIER'S CHIEF WRITINGS 

Explanation of signs. The first letter appended to a title indicates the place 
where the original may be found. B = collection of Dr. Beck, now in Vienna. 
MA = Moravian Archives. V = Vienna, Hofbibliothek. R = copy in the 
library of the Rochester Theological Seminary. The letters H, L, S, appended 
in addition, signify that the document is reprinted by one of Hubmaier's bi- 
ographers, Hoschek, Loserth, or Schreiber. For convenience these writings are 
frequently cited in the following pages by their numbers, as Op. i, Op. 22, etc. 

1. Achtzehn Schlussrede, so betreffende eyn gantz Christlich 
Leben, woran es gelegen ist. Disputiert zu Waldshut, von Doctor 
Balthassar Fridberger. 1524. B. H. L. 

2. Eine ernslliche Christliche erbietung an einen ersamen Rath 
zu Schaffhusen, durch doctor Baldazar Hubmor von Fridberg Pfar- 
ren ze Walshut beschehen. 1524. 

Original in Schaffhausen Archives. L., Beilage^ No. 2. 

3. Uon ketzern vndiren verbrennern vergleichung der Gschrifften, 
zusarremengezogen durch doctor Balthazer Fridbergern pfarren zu 
Waldsshut. 1524. B. R. 

Reprinted in this volume. 

4. Schlussreden die Baldazar Fridberger Pfarrer zu Waltzhut ein 
Bruder Huldrychs Zwinglis dem Joanni Eckio zu Ingoldstatt die 
meysterlich zu examinieren furbotten hat. Zurich, 1524, 

Library of University of Basel. H. L. S. 

5. Von dem Christlichen Touff der Glaubigen durch Balthasarn 
Huebmor von Friedberg, yetz zu Waldshut ausgangen. 1525. 
B. R. 

6. Ain Sum ains ganzen christlichen Lebens, durch Baldasaren 
Frydberger, Predicant, yetz zu Waldshut, etc. 1525. B. R. 

xv 



xvi Bibliography 

7. Ettlich beschlnssreden von Doctor Paltus Fridberger zu Walz- 
hut, alien Christen, von Undericht der Mess. Zurich. 1525. L. S. 

8. Balthazars Friedbergers zu Waldshut offentliche erbietung an 
alle christglaubige menschen, an andern tag des Hornungs be- 
schehen. 1525. 

Original in the Archives of St. Gall. S. 

9. Ein wahrhartig Entschuldigung und Klag gemeiner Stadt 
Waldshut von Schultheiss und Rath allda an alle christglaubigen 
Menschen, ausgegangen anno 1525. 

Original in the Archives of Basel. Reprinted by Strickler, Actensammlung, 
i,, No. 932. 

10. Ein Gesprech Balthasar Hubemors von Fridberg auff May- 
ster Ulrichs Zwinglens zu Zurich Tauffbttechlen von dem Khinder- 
tauff. Nicolspurg. 1526. V. R. 

11. Ein Christennliche Leertafel die ein eydlicher mensch ee 
und er im Wasser getaufft wird vor wissen solle. D. Balthasar 
Huebmor vonn Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1526. V. R. H. 

12. Der Ur alien und gar neuen Leer en Urtail das men die 
iungen khindlen nit tauffen solle bisz sy im glauben unnderricht 
sind. Nicolsperg. 1526. V. R. 

13. Ein kurze entschuldigung D. Balthasar Huebmors von Frid- 
berg an alle Christglaubige menschen das sy sich an den erdichtenn 
unnwahrhayten so im sein miszgoner zu legen nit ergern. Nicols- 
purg. 1526. V. R. 

14. Ein kurzes vater unser. D. Balthasar Hubmor von Fridberg. 
Nicolspurg, 1526. V. R. 

15. Ein einfeltiger unnderricht auff die wort. Das ist der leib 
mein in dem Nachtmal Christi D. Balthasar Huebmors von Frid- 
berg. Nicolspurg. 1526. V. R. H. 

16. Grund und Ursach. Das ein eydlicher mensch der gleich 
in seiner khindheit getaufft ist. schuldig sey, sich recht nach der 
Ordnung Christi ze tauffen lassen. ob er schon hundert jar allt were. 
D. Balthazar Hubmor von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. V. R. 



Bibliography xvii 

17. Von dem Khindertauff. Ekolampadius, Thomas Augus- 
tinianer Leesmaister M. Jacob Immelen M. Vuolfg. Weissenburger 
Balthasar Hubmor von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. V. R. H. 

18. Die zwelf Artikel christenlichs glaubens ze Ztirch im Was- 
sertthurn. in Bett weis gestellt. D. Balthasar Huebmor. Nicols- 
burg. 1527. V. R. 

19. Ein Form ze Tauffen im wasser die unnderrichten im glau- 
ben. D. Balthasar Hubmor von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. 
V. R. H. 

20. Ein Form des Naehtmals Ckristi. D. Balthasar Hubmor 
von Fridberg. 1527. V. R. H. 

Reprinted in Calvary's Mittheilungen. 

21. Von der Briederlichen straff. Wo die nit ist, da ist gewisz- 
lich audi khain Kirch ob schon der Wassertauff und das Nachtmal 
Christi daselbs gehalten werdent. D. Balthasar Hoebmoer von 
Fridberg. Nicolsburg. 1527. MA. H. 

22. Von dem Christlichen Bann. Wo derselb nit auffgericht und 
gebraucht wirdt nach dem ordenlichen und ernstlichen bevelh 
Christi, daselbs regirt nichts, denn sund, schand und laster. D. 
Balthasar Huebmor von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. MA. R. 

23. Von der Freyhait des Willens. Die Gott nach sein gesendet 
wort anbeut alien menschen und ihnen darin gewalt gibt seine 
khinder ze werden auch die waal natur seind ze bleiben lassen. 
G. Balthasar Huebmor von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. MA. 
R. H. 

24. Das ander Biechlein von der Freiwilligkeit des mensehens. 
In welchem Schrifft bezeugt wirdt, das Gott durch sein gesenndt 
wort alien menschen gwalt geve seine Kinder zu werden, und die 
wal guttes zu wollen und ze thon frey haym setze. Auch darbey 
die gegenschrifften des Widertayls auffgeloset. Balthasar Hubmor 
von Fridberg. Nicolspurg. 1527. MA. R. H. 

25. Von dem Sckwert. Ein Christennliche erklerung der Schriff- 
ten, so wider die Oberkeit (das ist, das die Christen nit sollent im 
Gwalt sitzen, noch das schwert siern) von etlichen Briiedern gar 
ennstlich angezogen werdent. D. Balthasar Huebmor von Frid- 
berg. 1527. MA. R. H. 



xviii Bibliography 



26. Rechenschaft seines Glaubens an den Konig, in 27 Artikeln. 
Original in the Archives, Vienna ; reprinted by L., somewhat abridged. 

OTHER SOURCES 

Beck, Geschichts-Biicher der Wiedertdufer in Oesterreich- 
Ungarn, Vienna, 1883. 

This volume of invaluable extracts from the scattered Anabaptist 
chronicles, and other original sources, is duly appreciated in the 
Preface. Dr. Beck's collection is in the possession of his family (he 
died in 1890), but it has been put at the disposal of Dr. Loserth 
and other investigators. It is the richest collection of Anabaptist 
literature in existence, and contains copes of a large number of 
scarce or unique writings. 

Egli, Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Ziircher Reformation in 
den Jahren 1519-1533. Zurich, 1879. 

Contains several valuable documents concerning the process against 
Hiibmaier at Zurich. 

Fabri, Vrsach warumb der Widertauffer Patron uund erster 
Anfenger Doctor Balthasar Huebmayr zu Wien auff den zehnten 
Martii Anno 1528 verbrennt sey. Vienna, 1528. 

Unique and invaluable account of the Vienna process, sentence, 
and execution of Hiibmaier. Reprinted by Loserth, as Beilage 
No. 10. 

FABRI, Adversus Balthasarum Pacimontanum, Anabaptistorum 
nostri sceculi primum aulhorem^ orthodox^ Jidei catholicce, defensio. 
Leipzig, 1528. 

A small tractate of only 22 leaves. The tone is polemic, and but 
few facts are added to our knowledge by it. 

FusSLIN, Beitrdge zur Erlduterung der Kirchen-Reformations- 
geschichte des Schweizerbundes. 5 vols. Zurich, 1741. 

A storehouse of documents of the highest value, well known to 
every student of the period. 



Bibliography xix 



Gemeiner, Chronik von Regensburg. Regensburg, 1800-1803. 

Reprinted in vol. xiii. of Chroniken der deutschen Stadte vom 14 
bis ins 16 Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1824. All important facts are 
given by Loser th. 

Gemeiner, Geschichte der Kirc henre formations in Regensburg. 
Regensburg, 1792. 

Kessler, Sabbata. Chronik der Jahre 1523-1539. St. Gall, 1870. 

The diary of the Zwinglian pastor at St. Gall ; abounds in valuable 
matter, some of it to be received with caution. 

Mitiheilungen aus dem Antiquariate von S. Calvary & Co., Berlin. 
Berlin, 1870. 

This, the first volume of a projected series that was unfortunately 
not continued, contains a nearly complete list of Hiibmaier's writings 
and a reprint of his tract, Bin form des Nachtmals Christi. 

Ostrofrancus, de Ratisbona, metropoli Bojoarice et subita ibidem 
Judeeorum proscriptione. Augsburg, 15 19. 

A valuable account, by a monk of the cloister of St. Emmerau, 
contemporary and eye-witness, of the agitation against the Jews. 

Schelhorn, Beitrdge zur Erlauterung der Geschichte besonders 
der schwabischen Kirchen und Gelehrten. 4 Parts. Memmingen, 
1772-1775. 

Part iv. contains material of use for the biographer of Htibmaier. 

Schultheiss und Rath der Stadt Waldshut an die Statthalter, Re- 
genten, und Rathe im Oberelsass. Bericht uber die Thatigkeit 
Imers und Ulrichs von Habsperg der Auslieferung des Doctors 
Balthasar Hubmaier. Waldshut, 1523. 

Reprinted in Archiv fur osterreichischer Geschichte, vol. lxxxvii., 
95-99. Very valuable. 

Strickler, Aciensam?nlung zur Schweizerischen Reformations- 
geschichte in den Jahren 1521-1532. 5 vols. Zurich, 1878-1884. 

This collection does for all Switzerland what Egli so well does for 
Zurich only. Contains some documents omitted by Egli. 



xx Bibliography 

Widmann, Chronik von Regertsburg. In vol. xv. of Chronik der 
deutschen Stadte. Leipzig, 1878. 

With the chronicle of Gemeiner, this constitutes our chief source 
of information regarding Hiibmaier's work in Regensburg. 

Zwingm, Werke, erste vollstdndige Ausgabe durch Melchior 
Schuler und Joh. Schulthess. 8 vols. Zurich, 1828-1861. 



ON HUBMAIER'S BIOGRAPHY 

Hoschek, Balthasar Hubmaier a pocatove novokfestenstva na 
Morave\ Brunn, 1867. 

A wonderfully sympathetic study, seeing that the author is a 
Roman Catholic, but not always, to be relied on in matters of fact, 
and still more frequently astray in its interpretations. 

Loserth, Doctor Balthasar Hubmaier und die Anfange der Wie- 
dertaufer in Mahren. Brunn, 1893. 

Though a Protestant, the author is less sympathetic than Hoschek, 
but more accurate. His study of the sources and literature has been 
exhaustive, and but for the help derived from his book this volume 
could never have been written. 

Schreiber, Hubmaier, der Stifter der Wiedertdufer auf dem 
Schwartzwalde, in his Taschenbuch fiir Geschichte und Alterthum 
in Siid-Deutschland. 1839, pp. 1-130 ; 1840, pp. 153-234. 

This, the first serious attempt to write a biography of Hubmaier, 
still has value. It is an incomplete sketch, a promised third part, to 
tell the story of the work in Moravia, never having been published. 

Besides these formal biographies, there are a number of excellent 
biographical sketches in various works of reference : Cunitz, in 
Herzog-Plitt, Real Encyclopddie, vi., 344 sq. Hegler, in Herzog- 
Hauck, Real Encyclopddie, vii., 418 sq. Stern in Allgemeine 
deutsche Biographie ; Veesenmeyer in Staudlin and Vater's Kirchen- 
hist. Archiv, 1826. 



Bibliography xxi 



SOME INDISPENSABLE BOOKS 

Arnold, Unparteyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie. 3 vols. 
Schaffhausen, 1740- 1742. 

An old and deservedly esteemed work, not yet entirely superseded. 

BAX, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists, London, 1903. 

The author writes from the socialistic point of view, and is too 
anxious to show that the Anabaptists were the forerunners of modern 
socialism. All of his facts are selected, and some are distorted, to 
prove this thesis. Had the author been able to resist this advocacy of 
a theory, he would have produced a very valuable book. As it is, 
his book cannot be neglected by any student of the Anabaptists. 

Bullinger, Der Wider touffen ursprung, fiirgang, Secten, wasen, 
furnemen, und gemeine jrer leer Artikel. Zurich, 1561. 

Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte. 3 vols. Frauenfeld, 1840. 

The first-named of these two works is much the more important 
for our purpose. It is exceedingly valuable, when due allowance for 
the personal equation is made. Bullinger was strongly prejudiced 
against the Anabaptists, and his testimony demands critical exami- 
nation and frequent correction. 

Burr age, History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland. Phila- 
delphia, 1882. 

Still the best monograph on the subject, in any language. 

Cornelius, Geschichte des Miinsterischen Aufruhrs. Leipzig, 
1855, i860. 

The work of a Roman Catholic (in his later years an Old Catholic), 
remarkable for learning and candour, but unfortunately never com- 
pleted. It contains valuable documents in the Appendix to either 
Part. 

Egli, Die Ziiricher Wiedertaufer. Zurich, 1878. 

A book whose value is in inverse ratio to its size. (It is a booklet 
of 104 pages.) 



xxii Bibliography 

Fusslin, Kir c hen- und Ketzer-geschichte der mittelalterischen 
Zeit. 3 vols. Erlangen, 1772-1774. 

This supplements the author's Sabbata, and contains much docu- 
mentary and other information, both interesting and valuable. 

Hagenbach, J. Oekolampads Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften. 
Elberfeld, 1859. 

An interesting biography of one who was an early friend of Hub- 
maier, and never became his enemy. 

Heath, Anabaptism, from its rise at Zwickau to its Fall at 
Miinster, 1521-1536. London, 1895. 

A book to which may be applied all that is said of the work of 
Bax above. 

Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzer- 
land. New York, 1903. 

The best biography in English. Chap. xii. contains a clear and 
candid account of Anabaptism at Zurich and Hiibmaier's treatment 
there. 

Jackson, Selected Works of Huldreich Zwingli. Philadelphia, 
1901. 

Kautsky, Geschichte des Socialismus, von Plato bis zu den Wie- 
dertaufern. Stuttgart, 1895. 

The author gives a valuable appreciation of the Anabaptists, but 
exaggerates the importance of the socialistic group among them. 

Loserth, Die Stadt Waldshut und die vorderosterreichische 
Regierung in der Jahren 1523-1526, in the Archiv fiir Oester- 
reichischer Geschichte, lxxxvii., I sq. 

Loserth, Zur Geschichte der Wiedertaufer in Mahren, in the 
Zeitschrift fur allgemeine Geschichte, 1884, Heft 6. 

Loserth, Der Communismus des Mdhrischen Wiedertaufer im 
16 und 17 Jahrhundert. Vienna, 1894. 

These three are all valuable, the last invaluable. The first is prac- 
tically reprinted in the biography of Hubmaier. 



Bibliography xxiii 

Newman, History of Anti-Pedobaptism, from the Rise of Pedo- 
baptism to a.d. 1609. Philadelphia, 1897. 

This gives the best account in English of the rise and general 
history of Anabaptism. Chaps, vii., viii. , x., and xiv. include a brief, 
I accurate, and appreciative account of Hiibmaier's career. 

Ott, Annates Anabaptistici. Basel, 1672. 

Like Catrou's Histoire des Anabaptistes (Paris, 161 5) this is now 
superseded, and valuable chiefly for the documents it contains, some 
of which are important and not easily found elsewhere. 

Schreiber, Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, 3 vols. Freiburg, 1863- 
1866. 

A rich and instructive collection of documents rather than a 
history. 

Seidemann, Thomas Miintzer. Dresden, 1842. 

While still the best single book on the famous agitator, it demands 
considerable correction in the light of later investigations. 

Stahelin, Huldreich Zwingli : sein Leben und Wirken. Basel, 
vol. i., 1895 ; vol. ii., 1897. 

The standard biography in German. 

Stern, Ueber die Zwolf Artikel der Bauern. Leipzig, 1868. 

A monograph of considerable value, but the author's hypothesis 
that Hubmaier composed the Articles, though widely adopted as if 
a proved fact by writers hostile to Hubmaier and the Anabaptists, 
has been fully disproved by later investigation. 

Strobel, Leben, Schriften und Lehren Thoma Miintzers des 
Urhebers des Bauernaufruhrs in Thiiringen. Nurnberg, 1795. 

This small and now very scarce book is an unskilful piece of bio- 
graphy, but the collection of documents is of the greatest value. 
They include reprints of Miinzer's most important writings. 

Usteri, Darstellung der Taujiehre Zwinglis, in Studien und 
Kritiken for 1882, p. 205 sq. 



xxiv Bibliography 

Wiedemann, Dr. Johann Eck. Regensburg, 1865. 

An excellent biography of Hubmaier's teacher, that contains 
original documentary matter illustrating the relations of master and 
pupil to about 1520. 

Wolny, Die Wiedertdufer in Mdhren in Archiv fur Kunde 
osterreichischer Geschichts- Que lien . 1850. 



Balthasar Hubmaier 



BALTHASAR HUBMAIER 



CHAPTER I 

THE ANABAPTISTS AND THE REFORMATION 

F7 EW people have fared so hard at the hands of 
* historians as the Anabaptists. Until a genera- 
tion ago, writers of every school did little more 
than repeat the rash and unjust and often slander- 
ous statements of the contemporaries of this sect. 
For these sixteenth-century denunciations there are 
some obvious excuses to be made. The Anabap- 
tists were the most universally troublesome of all 
the anti-Catholic parties. They were most vexa- 
tious to the Romanists, because they were the most 
logical, consistent, thorough-going, and determined 
opponents of the Papacy and all its works. They 
were equally vexatious to those who conducted the 
reformations in the various states, because these 



2 Balthasar Hubmaier 

were all more or less illogical, lukewarm, and in- 
clined to compromise with the old order, for the 
sake of obtaining the support of princes and govern- 
ments, without which support reform was believed 
to be, and perhaps would have been, impracticable. 
It was natural that such a party, a veritable Ishmael 
among the reformers, should come to be disliked, 
distrusted, feared by all, and that it should be de- 
nounced with commensurate warmth and energy. 

Then, too, certain groups of this party, falling 
under the spell of preachers whose learning and 
sense were no match for their eloquence, and misled 
by a certain specious but false exegesis of Scripture, 
were betrayed into a fanatical expectation of the 
immediate Parousia and the founding of Christ's 
millennial kingdom. Under the stress of this fanat- 
icism these Anabaptists fell into disorders and ex- 
cesses, the stigma of which would in any case have 
fallen upon the rest, even had not their opponents 
eagerly seized upon this pretext to involve the 
whole party in a condemnation as fierce and bitter 
as it was undiscriminating and often unjust. 

Certain groups among the Anabaptists, led astray 
by a too literal interpretation of Christ's words and 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 3 

of apostolic precedent, professed principles of non- 
resistance, avoidance of oaths, non-payment of 
taxes, community of goods, — doctrines that might 
easily be supposed, even by the sincere among 
their contemporaries, in their application to involve 
the entire subversion of the existing civil and social 
and religious order. That men should shrink from 
a revolutionary programme so comprehensive and 
radical need surprise nobody. The surprising thing 
would be if these Anabaptist vagaries had found 
any favour in the sixteenth century. They barely 
find tolerance now, to say nothing of favour. 

But, worse than all, the Reformation coincided 
with a time of great social changes and deep social 
unrest. Many things had helped to bring about the 
decay of feudalism and the decline of the knights 
and lesser nobles, but the invention of gunpowder 
had dealt the final blow. In the last analysis, social 
and political supremacy, in the case of any order, 
rests on force. So long as the mailed knight on his 
mailed horse was the invincible force, to him fell 
honours and wealth, lands and power. But the 
arquebus and cannon changed all this. Knighthood 
had to give place to manhood. The meanest 



4 Balthasar Hubmaier 

peasant with a gun in his hand became more than 
the military equal of the knight, whose armour was 
no protection against bullet or ball, and whose 
lance, sword, and mace lost all their terrors for the 
man in leather jerkin. Infantry, not cavalry, be- 
came the strength of armies. With this decline of 
the military power of the knights began also the de- 
cay of their social and political importance. They 
fought against their fate desperately, but they 
might as well have set themselves against the tides. 

The first result of this social change was a marked 
increase in the power of kings and ruling princes. 
Feudalism made for decentralisation : it was anti- 
national, the apotheosis of individualism. That is 
to say, feudalism was this in practice. The great 
feudatories were always turbulent, always rebellious 
against the authority of their nominal suzerain, the 
king, so that the royal authority was a mere shadow. 
But in the sixteenth century this was rapidly chang- 
ing: the power of the nobles was declining, while 
the royal authority was becoming a thing to be 
reckoned with and feared. 

Parallel with this decline of the nobility, and con- 
tributing much to hasten the process, was another 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 5 

great social change, the accumulation of large for- 
tunes by the more enterprising among the burgher 
class. The multi-millionaires of our day have their 
counterpart, on a smaller scale, among the mer- 
chants, manufacturers, and printers of the free cities 
of the sixteenth century. Many of these so pro- 
spered that they were able to live in a splendour that 
vied with that of kings and far outshone the state of 
ordinary nobles. While the castles of the knights 
still lacked what we should now reckon the ordinary 
necessaries and decencies of life, the town house of 
the wealthy merchant or tradesman was the abode 
not only of comfort but of luxury. The attempts 
of the nobles to equal this splendour of apparel, this 
sumptuousness of living — attempts all the more de- 
termined because the high-born noble despised his 
burgher rival — only resulted in their more rapid im- 
poverishment and more speedy extinction. 

As the drowning man clutches at the proverbial 
straw, the knights in their distress tried to wring 
more money out of the class dependent upon them, 
the peasants. For a time, therefore, the lot of these 
long-suffering people, whose emancipation was in 
the end to come out of this very turmoil, grew 



6 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

worse rather than better. They had been scourged 
with whips before, now they were scourged with 
scorpions. The result was that the peasantry were 
seething with dissatisfaction, ready for any de- 
sperate revolt at the first promise of betterment of 
their fortunes, only too willing to lend eager ears 
to any who would prophesy that the good time 
coming was almost here. And with this state of 
things the first throes of the Reformation and the 
circulation of Luther's brave early demands for 
freedom exactly coincided. It is no marvel that 
the peasants expected more than was then possible, 
that they were misguided by fanatics into a prema- 
ture uprising. Nor is it any wonder that some of 
the Anabaptists were drawn into this movement. 
Many of them were from this peasant class, knew 
fully their wrongs, sympathised with their hopes and 
aspirations, and, it must be added, became par- 
takers of their errors and excesses. 

A scapegoat for these errors must be found. 
The Roman Catholic writers of the period were in- 
clined to lay all the blame on Luther and his writ- 
ings. This was unfair, but Luther and his followers 
became greatly alarmed lest the princes of Germany 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 7 

should adopt this view of the case and decline to 
support his reformation. They therefore fixed 
upon the Anabaptists as the party that should be 
made to bear all the reproach of the social disorders 
of the time. The rest was easy. It was only 
necessary to make the name Anabaptist a general 
term of opprobrium, like "scoundrel," "villain," 
"heretic," and apply it recklessly to any party or 
to any man disapproved by the speaker or writer, 
to all who had published unorthodox opinions or 
been guilty of unworthy deeds. This was done for 
generations by writers who repeated these whole- 
sale slanders without taking the least trouble to 
discover the facts. What wonder that the name 
Anabaptist still reeks with foul suggestions, after 
standing through more than three centuries for the 
sum of all wickedness, the synonym of all that is 
falsest in doctrine and vilest in practice? 

One of the earliest notes of dissent from this un- 
sparing condemnation, if not the first of all, was 
sounded by a Roman Catholic writer, Dr. Cornelius, 
of Bonn. 1 He first spoke an effective word in 



1 A captious critic might object that Dr. Cornelius should not be 
described thus, since he belonged for the last thirty years of his life 



8 Balthasar Hubmaier 

mitigation of judgment upon the Anabaptists, and 
declared that their real history had yet to be written 
His contributions to our knowledge of the Miinster 
affair are not only of great value in themselves, but 
his labours encouraged other scholars to delve 
among the records for the facts regarding a much- 
misunderstood and greatly abused people. The 
next great service was rendered by Dr. Josef Beck, 
Counsellor of the Austrian Supreme Court of Judi- 
cature, whose Geschichts-Bucher der Wiedertdufer 
(Historical Writings of the Anabaptists) l marks an 
epoch in the study of these people. With great 
industry he gathered from archives and libraries a 
vast mass of original Anabaptist literature, to which 
he added a rich collection of his own ; and from 
these sources he collated, condensed, and edited a 
volume that for the first time gave the world an in- 
side view of Anabaptist teaching and history. 

It is not practicable, nor is it necessary, to speak 



to the Old Catholics. But at the time he wrote this book he was in 
full communion with the Roman Church, had shown no symptom of 
separation from it, and was, so far as anything appeared, in full 
sympathy with all its doctrines. What else but a Roman Catholic 
should one call him in 1855 ? 

1 This was published in 1883, as vol. xliii. in the Fontes Rerum 
Austriacarum, Second Series, and also reprinted separately. 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 9 

of all who have since laboured in this field with 
diligence and success. One writer should be noted, 
however, as easily surpassing all others during the 
past two decades in the extent and value of his 
work, — Dr. Ludwig Keller, State Archivist at Miin- 
ster. Dr. Keller's special contribution has been to 
show the genetic relation of the Anabaptists of the 
Reformation period to the older reform-parties. 
And if at times his conclusions have outrun his 
facts, and depended for their soundness rather on 
his historical insight than on any definite proofs he 
has been able to bring forward, this cannot be said 
to vitiate the greater part of his work. 

Whether documentary proofs will ever be forth- 
coming to establish a clear historical connection be- 
tween the Anabaptists and the older evangelical 
sects who taught similar doctrines and practices, is 
a question that for the present had better be rele- 
gated for discussion to such as are confident that 
they possess the gift of prophecy. That there is a 
genetic connection we are fairly entitled to assume, 
by the practice of all historical investigators, not as 
a thing completely proved, but as a convenient and 
safe working hypothesis. Take a parallel case. It 



io Balthasar Hiibmaier 

cannot be said to be established, by satisfactory 
historical proof, that there is a genetic connection 
between the heretical groups or parties known as 
Paulicians, Bogomils, and Albigenses. They are 
widely separated in time and space, and visible links 
to connect them there are none. Yet the Manichaean 
element common to their theology and organisation 
is so distinct as to make it certain that a genetic 
connection subsists between them, whether it can 
be traced or not. Documentary proof is only one 
method, after all, of convincing the human reason 
as to historical fact : there are other methods that 
are both effective and valid. Historical investiga- 
tion, though it is quite right to rely mainly on docu- 
ments, cannot altogether ignore other methods of 
reaching truth. 

The characteristic feature of all these older re- 
form-parties is that, beginning in each instance as a 
revolt from a corrupt and impure Church, and at- 
tempting to return to the Scriptural ideals of faith 
and practice, these parties reach at length an identi- 
cal conclusion : that a pure church cannot exist ex- 
cept on the basis of believers' baptism, and that the 
baptism of infants is totally unwarranted by the 



Anabaptists and the Reformation n 

Scriptures. In many other details these parties 
differ; in this they are a unit. This was the con- 
clusion of the earliest of these parties, the Petro- 
brusians; as to that, the testimony of their great 
Roman Catholic opponent, Peter the Venerable, 
leaves no possibility of doubt. The same con- 
clusions were reached by the followers of Peter 
Waldo — by those, at least, on the French side of 
the Alps, if we may accept the unanimous testi- 
mony of their contemporary Roman critics and 
persecutors. Neither of these bodies is called Ana- 
baptist by their contemporary and hostile chron- 
iclers. This may be because they did not commonly 
rebaptise adults who had (in their view) received a 
null-and-void so-called baptism in their infancy. 1 
They may never have seen that logical consistency 
required this of them — we know that for a time such 
was the case with the Swiss Anabaptists — and they 
may have contented themselves with making their 

1 That some of the Petrobrusians, at any rate, rebaptised is proved 
by the fact that Peter puts these words into their mouths: " We wait 
for the proper time, after a man is prepared to know his God and 
believe in him; we do not (as you accuse us) rebaptise him, but we 
baptise him who can be said never to have been baptised." — Contra 
Petrobrusianos Hcereticos, Migne's Latin Patrology, clxxxix., 729. 
These words might be taken from a treatise of Hubmaier, so well do 
they express his ideas. 



12 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

protest against the baptism of infants. Or, it may 
be that they rebaptised, but the Roman writers 
were ignorant of the practice, or did not think it 
worthy of mention. Neither of the last two sug- 
gestions seems very probable. 

These earlier evangelical parties, though severely 
persecuted, — perhaps in consequence of such per- 
secution, — had spread themselves widely abroad. 
Originating in Southern France, they had not only 
made their way across the Alpine passes into 
Northern Italy, but had sent their missionaries 
throughout Switzerland and Germany. Roman 
Catholic literature testifies unmistakably both to 
the extent and to the success of this evangelisation. 
Communities of Waldenses were gathered every- 
where, and the severest persecution did not succeed 
in utterly eradicating these heretics from the regions 
in which they once obtained a foothold. That a 
secret existence of the sect was maintained in many 
quarters is proved by the fact that the authorities 
occasionally lighted upon such a case. The possi- 
bility, the credibility even, of many such survivals 
down to the Reformation era, is sufficiently estab- 
lished by the history of the Unitas Fratrum, which 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 13 

was preserved in secret, even the due succession 
of its bishops being maintained, for more than a 
century. The close correspondence in doctrine and 
practice between Petrobrusians and Waldenses, be- 
tween Waldenses and Anabaptists, even in the ab- 
sence of definite documentary proofs, warrants the 
conclusion that in these successive sects we really 
study the history of a single evangelical movement, 
which, in various regions and under different names, 
has persisted without a break from the twelfth cent- 
ury (and perhaps earlier still) to the present day. 

If such is the case, the Anabaptists of the six- 
teenth century are not so related to the Reforma- 
tion as has generally been supposed. They are not, 
that is to say, an offshoot of the Reformation, 
though they might, indeed, be called its root, since 
they are both older and more primitive in practice. 
Among the "Reformers before the Reformation" 
whose labours deserve to be better recognised are 
those evangelical preachers who for centuries had 
been gradually leavening Central Europe with the 
truths of the gospel, and preparing the way for the 
great spiritual revolution to come. A history of 
their labours cannot indeed be written ; material 



1 4 Balthasar Hubmaier 

may never be discovered for such a history, though 
doubtless large additions will yet be made to our 
present knowledge by scholarly diligence. The 
broad outlines even are vague and conjectural. We 
can only infer from a few known facts, and from 
certain observed phenomena in connection with the 
Reformation, that the influence of this evangel upon 
the people has been too lightly estimated by many 
who have passed for critical historians. 

However scholars may finally agree upon the 
question of the origin of the Anabaptists, certain 
things concerning them are now comparatively 
plain. The great majority of them were peaceable 
folk, law-abiding people, asking nothing but that 
they might be permitted to worship and serve God 
in their own way, and wishing no harm to those 
who held to different ways. There was a mystical 
element in their doctrines, the foundation stone of 
which was the conviction that to be a Christian is to 
be united by faith to the Son of God, so as to be a 
partaker of his nature. This cannot be, save by a 
complete change of nature, character, life. One 
cannot be a Christian, therefore, by inheritance, by 
education, by sacraments; repentance, faith, re- 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 15 

generation, are necessary to produce this intimate 
personal relation with Christ. Flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom: to enter it one must 
be born again. 

This notion of the essential nature of Christianity 
led them to their idea concerning the Church. This 
outward embodiment of the kingdom should be, so 
far as is humanly possible, composed of those only 
who have been regenerated by the Spirit, who have 
become vitally one with Christ by faith, and are 
continuing in such union with him, as is shown by 
their bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit. Such a 
Church could not possibly exist if it were ruled by 
princes and town councils; hence the Anabaptists 
insisted on the sharp separation between the secular 
and the spiritual — as we should say, between Church 
and State. The civil magistrate, in their view, had 
nothing to do with matters of religion. He had 
discharged his full duty when he had protected the 
innocent and peaceable, and punished the evil-doer. 
For this he bore the sword and was a minister of 
God; anything more was a usurpation. And it 
equally followed that entrance into such a Church as 
they contemplated must be made by the voluntary 



1 6 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

act of the individual concerned, and could not 
possibly be accomplished for him by another. In- 
fant baptism was therefore objectionable to them, 
not only because they found it to be neither taught 
by precept nor warranted by example in the Scrip- 
tures, but because it was essentially an impertinence, 
the anticipatory doing by others of that which it 
was alike the privilege and the duty of every be- 
liever to do for himself. As an act performed with- 
out faith, it was to them null and void. Hence 
they always resented the name Anabaptist {re- 
baptisers), and protested that it was a complete mis- 
nomer, since they administered the first and only 
real baptism — the baptism of a believer — and that 
the so-called baptism of an unbeliever is no baptism 
at all, but an empty and meaningless form. As 
Hiibmaier pithily put it for all of them, "Water is 
not baptism, else the whole Danube were baptism, 
and the fishermen and boatmen would be daily 
baptised." 

There was but one other principle on which all 
Anabaptists were agreed: the supremacy of the 
Scriptures as a rule of faith and practice. They 
rather assumed than asserted a doctrine of inspira- 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 17 

tion, and confined themselves generally to an asser- 
tion of the authority of the Bible without defining 
the grounds on which such authority rested. They 
made no such distinction as is attributed to certain 
heretical sects between the Old Testament and the 
New. They received the whole Bible as equally 
authoritative, but not equally authoritative for all 
purposes. Here they made a distinction, namely, 
that the New Testament is our sole source of know- 
ledge of all that pertains to the Christian Church, 
and they would not admit the validity of argu- 
ments drawn from Jewish institutions to prove 
what should exist under the gospel. 

The mystical element in Anabaptist teaching is 
apparent in what some of them say about the inter- 
pretation of Scripture. A special illumination is 
not only promised to every believer, but is indis- 
pensable for the understanding of the word of God, 
since the natural man cannot comprehend the things 
of the Spirit, but spiritual things must be spiritually 
discerned. Though we may trace some likeness 
here between their teaching and the doctrines of the 
earlier Montanists and the later Friends, we miss 
altogether that exaggerated notioa of an inner light 



1 8 Balthasar Hubmaier 

of the Spirit which is superior in authority to the 
external word. This inner light, according to the 
Anabaptist, is bestowed not to supersede the written 
word, but to make it possible for the humblest be- 
liever to understand and follow that word. With 
the Friend, the seat of authority is and must be 
within himself; he must listen to the voice of the 
Spirit speaking to his own soul, though it supple- 
ment, even if it contradict, the written word. 
With the Anabaptist, the seat of authority is the 
declared will of God in the Scriptures, and the light 
of the Spirit is given to make these plain to him ; 
and he is always to test the supposed voice of the 
Spirit to his soul by comparing these utterances 
carefully with the written word. 

And yet, in spite of this admirably sane theory of 
the Scriptures and of the office of the Spirit, groups 
among the Anabaptists fell into grievous errors, 
which were most unfortunate in their results. For 
one thing, they greatly weakened the party by the 
divisions and the controversies that naturally en- 
sued ; and then the follies and excesses into which 
some fell, in consequence of error in interpreting 
Scripture, covered the whole party with opprobrium 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 19 

and gave a decent pretext for persecuting all with 
unrelenting fury, as has already been pointed out. 
Even from their persecutors, however, we may fre- 
quently discover that there was no real ground for 
so severe treatment — or, rather, that the real ground 
of these persecutions differed from the grounds 
alleged. The real offence of the Anabaptists was 
not that they were seditious, turbulent, fomenters 
of social revolution, and therefore dangerous sub- 
jects, potential rebels even when not in actual re- 
bellion. That was true of a few among them, but 
nobody ever seriously believed this of the majority. 
The real offence of the Anabaptists was that they 
were Anabaptists — that they held and taught just 
such things as are above set forth. Their doctrines 
were too Scriptural, too spiritual, too incompatible 
with those that in many places were being forced 
on unwilling people, in the name of reform, by 
irreligious rulers obviously actuated by ambition 
and greed. Their doctrines were too often eagerly 
received by the common people, who lacked the 
learning requisite for the perversion of the plain 
sense of Scripture, and found their Bibles and the 
Anabaptist teachings to agree wonderfully. There 



20 Balthasar Hubmaier 

was, in fact, no reconciling these teachings with 
those of state churches, set up, as they often were, 
by unworthy princes and ungodly town councils — 
churches in which little or no attempt was made to 
discriminate between regenerate and unregenerate. 
These were reasons enough — these were the real 
reasons — why governments everywhere tried to 
harry the Anabaptists out of their lands. 

Time, which works so many changes, is bringing 
about the vindication of these greatly wronged 
people. It is now known, and every year sees the 
fact more generally acknowledged, that they were 
treated with a cruelty as unjust, unnecessary, and 
unwise as it was brutal. The brutality may be 
excused in part as the universal sin of the age. 
The folly and injustice are not so easily forgiven, 
since many of those in places of influence and 
power sinned against light. The Anabaptists ex- 
perienced the fate that usually befalls any man who 
has the misfortune to be out of joint with his times. 
Not all their teachings, it is true, have won their 
way to general acceptance — some of them may never 
gain such a victory — but many of their fundamental 
contentions are commonplaces of Christian thought 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 21 

to-day, and their ideal of the total separation be- 
tween the spiritual and the temporal is inwrought 
into the texture of American institutions. The 
time is rapidly approaching when the Anabaptists 
will be as abundantly honoured as, in the past four 
centuries, they have been unjustly contemned. 

If this is true of the Anabaptists as a whole, 
what shall be said of their leaders? These have not 
escaped the general fate of the party. They were 
burned, they were drowned, they were beheaded, 
they were tortured, they were beaten with rods; 
while they lived they wandered as outcasts from 
city to city, or dwelt in caves of the earth; and 
after they had sealed their testimony to the truth 
with their blood, men whom the world calls great 
in piety and good works often conspired to cover 
their names with undeserved infamy. 1 Not a few 
of these leaders were men of the highest culture, 
the broadest learning of their times — scholars not 



1 A case in point is that of Ludwig Hatzer, beheaded at Constance 
in 1529. The Anabaptist chroniclers are unanimous in saying that 
he " was condemned for the gospel, and witnessed in knightly 
fashion for the truth with his blood." Nevertheless, the Archives 
of Constance say that he was condemned for bigamy, which he had 
confessed. Everything in his life and writings gives the lie to this 
record, which is open to suspicion from the fact that Anabaptism 



22 Balthasar Hubmaier 

unworthy of a place beside Erasmus and Melanch- 
thon, preachers whose eloquence was not inferior 
to that of Luther or Zwingli. It was their misfor- 
tune to be on the losing side of a great controversy, 
and they were obliged to pay for their allegiance to 
truth and righteousness not only life and fame, but 
honour. Their very names are known only to a 
few curious scholars, and their writings — if any 
have escaped the zeal of rival persecutors, Catholic 
and Protestant — are to be found in dusty archives 
or the dark corners of libraries and museums. 

It is with the hope of doing something to rescue 
from his undeserved oblivion one of the greatest 
Anabaptist leaders that this biography has been 
undertaken. The rage of persecution did not suc- 
ceed, in his case, in destroying what his busy pen 
sent forth, and we have fairly adequate materials 
for a biography. Not quite every line, but nearly 



was not then a capital offence in Constance, and some other pretext 
must be found to put him to death. In later years Hatzer was ac- 
cused of advocating polygamy, and of having as many as twenty-four 
wives ! We find no contemporary attestation to these slanders 
where we should most expect it if there were any truth in them. 
For example, Capito's letters to Zwingli (Zwingli, Op., vii., 420, 
422, 455, 456, etc.), though they accuse Hatzer of many things, do 
not mention immorality. Fusslin rejects the charge altogether. 
Neue und unpartheyische Kirchen unci Ketzer his torie, iii., 269. 




DR. JOHN ECK. 

TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT. 



Anabaptists and the Reformation 23 

so, of his printed writings has survived, and the 
chief events in his career are otherwise well at- 
tested. Of no other leader of the Anabaptists can 
so much be said ; biographies of the greater part of 
them must for ever go unwritten, because materials 
no longer exist for more than the meagrest of 
sketches. There has been no attempt in these 
pages at idealising Hiibmaier. What he was and 
what he did will be found plainly set forth, and as 
far as possible in his own words, with no conceal- 
ment of his errors, no apology for his faults. His 
life and teachings, his character and fate, will speak 
for themselves, and the biographer need add no- 
thing further. 



CHAPTER II 

THE YEARS OF PREPARATION 
1481-1523 

f^ REAT obscurity envelops the early life of 
^-^* Hiibmaier. Certain record remains of but 
one fact relating to his origin : he was born in Fried- 
burg, an ancient town on the Ach, some five miles 
east of the city of Augsburg. He sometimes called 
himself, and was called by others, an Augsburger. 
More frequently he was known in his earlier years 
as Friedburger or Pacimontanus ; later he is usually 
called by his surname of Hiibmaier. The year of 
his birth can only be conjectured; it was probably 
1480 or 148 1. 

Of his family we know absolutely nothing. It 
was evidently of peasant origin, as is witnessed by 
its meaning, "the farmer on the hill." 1 From the 



1 Hiibmaier = Hlibel (provincial for Hiigel) meier. 
24 



[1481-1523] The Years of Preparation 25 

circumstance that his parents lived in the town of 
Friedburg and were able to give their son more 
than the ordinary education of his day, it might be 
plausibly conjectured that they had risen to the 
artisan or small-merchant class. Yet, as there are 
not a few instances in the sixteenth century of sons 
of poor peasants obtaining a university education, 
little confidence can be placed in any such infer- 
ence. That the family was of no importance may 
be more certainly inferred from the fact that no 
record of it remains, and that no trace of it is to be 
found to-day. It may perhaps be still further in- 
ferred that, as Hiibmaier never visited his parents 
after he came of age, and never refers to them in 
his writings, they had died during the years of his 
education. In his case, however, silence means 
nothing, for he says singularly little about himself, 
only in two or three instances, hereafter to be 
cited, referring to anything in his past life, and 
then for apologetic reasons. 

Everything in the character and life of Hiibmaier 
goes to show that he received a careful religious 
training in his tender years. From the first he 
seems to have been inclined to piety and the service 



26 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 si- 

of God, and we shall not go astray if we attribute 
this inclination of heart to the influence of a Chris- 
tian mother. As to his education, it was no doubt 
begun, according to the customs of the time, in 
some local school, but at an early age the lad was 
sent to the Latin school of Augsburg, then a famous 
institution for the training of boys. Of the Augs- 
burg of Hiibmaier's days there remain few traces 
except the cathedral, parts of which are of the 
tenth century. The most diligent search has failed 
to discover even a tradition as to the location of the 
school that he attended. That he made unusual 
progress in his studies and was already singled out 
as a boy of exceptional promise, is all that we now 
know of this part of his career. 

It is clear, however, either that he began his 
studies in preparation for the university somewhat 
later than was customary, or that they were fre- 
quently interrupted by poverty or illness. The 
former is the more probable, for there was little 
difficulty of a financial sort in the way of a bright 
boy's education in those days. Now there are 
scholarships and funds of various kinds to smooth 
the way of such ; then, the Church was ever on the 




X: 



£3 



THE UNIVERSITY OF INQOLSTADT, AS IT IS TO-DAY. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 27 

lookout for promising youths to enter the ranks of 
the priesthood or one of the celebrated orders. But 
Hiibmaier was past twenty years of age before he 
was ready to enter the university, and past thirty 
before he took his baccalaureate degree, as we 
should say. Luther and Eck, some years his 
juniors, had already been lecturing for several years 
in their respective universities, while Hiibmaier was 
still an undergraduate. 

The first written record that we have of Hiibmaier 
is his matriculation at the University of Freiburg, 
under date of May 1, 1503. In the matriculation 
book he is described as "Baldesar Hiebmayr de 
Augusta " i. e., from Augsburg. This university, 
established in 1456, was but little older and hardly 
more famous than the much nearer University of 
Ingolstadt, and why the more distant institution 
should have been sought is not easily conjectured. 
Here the usual studies of the period were pursued 
with ardour and success, until the taking of his 
Master's degree, probably in 15 11. On the occa- 
sion of his taking a later degree an oration was 
delivered, according to the academic custom of 
those days, by his master, Dr. Eck, which gives us 



28 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 4 8i- 

practically all that is known concerning this part of 
his life: 

1 ' Well grounded in the rudiments of grammar and the 
easier subjects taught, he came to the Freiburg high 
school and became a student there. It is wonderful to 
say with what circumspection and eagerness he acquired 
the doctrines of philosophy, how he hung upon the lips 
of his teacher and zealously wrote down the lectures — a 
diligent reader, an unwearied hearer and an industrious 
repetitor l of other hearers. So he obtained the Master's 
degree with the greatest honour. Many had advised him 
to pursue the study of medicine; to whom he answered: 
he would rather seek theology as the holiest mistress, 
and say with the prophet, I have long since chosen her, 
and will prepare her a dwelling in the sanctuary of my 
mind. 2 And although the narrow means of his father's 
house 3 was so embarrassing to him that he had to leave 



1 It was the custom in Hubmaier's day for bright students to give 
private lectures to their fellows, repeating the substance of what the 
professor had taught. Such a course was called a Repetorium, and 
the lecturer was a Repetitor. The custom has its analogue in the 
4 ' quiz " classes in the medical schools of the present day. At the 
present time a Repetitor in a German university corresponds pretty 
nearly to a tutor in an American college. 

2 Hoschek gives (p. 120) a somewhat different version of Hub- 
maier's praise of theology : "Her alone have I chosen, her before 
all others have I selected, and for her will I prepare a cell in my 
heart." But for the original see Wiedemann, Dr. Johann Eck, Re- 
gensburg, 1865, p. 451. 

3 This reference to his father's poverty might be taken in itself to 
negative the above-mentioned conjecture regarding Hubmaier's fam- 
ily, but some sudden reverse might have overtaken a man hitherto 
prosperous. 




A LECTURE-ROOM (POSSIBLY HUBMAIER'S) IN THE OLD UNIVERSITY 
OF INQOLSTADT. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 29 

the high school for a long time, and, to protect himself 
from want, became a school-teacher in Schaffhausen, yet 
he returned at the first favourable opportunity to his ac- 
customed studies and under my guidance. What pro- 
gress he then made, his learned lectures, his sermons 
before the people, and his scholastic exercises give a 
sufficient testimony." 

This eulogy was returned with interest three 
years later, when Eck published the text of a dis- 
putation held by him at Bologna, for which occasion 
Hiibmaier, like Silas Wegg, "dropped into poetry" : 

1 ' O f elix nimium f elix Germania, quae nunc 

Doctiloquos gignis multisciosque viros. 
Cleopatream priscus satis extulit umbram 

Objicient doctum saecula nostra virum. 
Eckius is meus est Germano sydere natus 

Illo nimirum Theutona terra nitet. 
Theologus rarus, juris Sophiaeque peritus 

Saepius in populum semina sacra serit. 
Nodosam Logicen (si mavis) Rhetoris arma 

Quaeque mathematicus, Astronomusque docent 
Quicquid habet Rhetor, Historia, culta poesis 

Dispeream si non singula solus habet. 1 

These verses, if they contain words that would 
have made Quintilian stare and gasp, have at least 



1 Wiedemann, Dr. yohann Eck, pp. 462, 463. The lines may be 
rather freely englished thus : " O happy, too happy Germany, that 
now producest men of so great eloquence and learning ! Antiquity 
brought forth beauty as her choicest product, our age presents the 



30 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

the merit of brevity, and are not much worse than 
the specimens that Eck's biographer gives us from 
the most famous scholars of that age. 

From another source we learn more about the 
Schaffhausen episode of which Eck speaks: the 
official records of the city inform us that Baltisar 
Hubmer of Augsburg was a temporary resident of 
the town in 1507, and had taken the prescribed 
oath of obedience to the laws. 1 Beyond this, little 
or nothing can be added to the words of Eck. Of 
Hiibmaier's university career only one other detail 
can be supplied, and that is told us by himself, in 
one of his rare autobiographic passages. In his last 
known writing, he says that twenty years before, 
he held a disputation at Freiburg on the question 
whether it is allowable to increase the number of 
feast days, himself taking the negative. His ene- 
mies accused him in Zurich, in 1526, of stealing 
gowns while he was at Freiburg; it is possible there 



scholar. My Eck, sprung from the stars, is surely the bright orna- 
ment of this German land. A rare theologian, skilled in law and 
wisdom, he often sows the good seed among the people. A knotty 
logician, a master of sentences, whatever mathematician or astrono- 
mer teaches, all that orator, historian, or poet knows — I '11 be hanged 
if this single man does not know it all ! " 
1 Loserth, p. 15, note 4. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 31 

was some escapade on which such a construction 
could be placed by an enemy, for students then 
were full of their pranks as now, but the high repute 
that he always maintained makes it certain that there 
could have been nothing more than this in the charge. 
The most important fact regarding his course at 
Freiburg is that it brought Hiibmaier under the in- 
fluence of John Mayer, better known as Eck, a sur- 
name assumed because he was born in the Swabian 
town of that name. Though five or six years the 
junior of his pupil, Eck was farther advanced, hav- 
ing already gained fame for his scholastic and 
patristic learning, and still more for his readiness and 
skill in dialectics. He was, in addition, the more 
strenuous and masterful spirit; and had the two 
men remained in close connection we might have 
seen on the Catholic side during the Reformation 
struggle a pair closely approximating the character- 
istics and influence of Luther and Melanchthon on 
the Protestant side. Eck was at this time principal 
of Peacock Hall, 1 one of the students' societies or 



1 Hoschek says (i., 120) that, by the influence of Eck, Hiibmaier 
himself was elected superintendent of Peacock Hall, but this appears 
to be an error. Cf. Loserth, p. 16. 



32 Balthasar Hiibmaier [ I4 8i- 

Bursen, and it is morally certain that Hiibmaier 
was a member of this body. It was the general 
custom of the universities of that day to give much 
attention to disputation, as a means of fixing ac- 
quirements in memory and making one's entire 
mental resources instantly responsive to any de- 
mand. So great a master of dialectics, so eager a 
disputant as Eck proved himself to be during his 
whole life, would certainly magnify this part of his 
work as a teacher. From many sources we learn 
that his students were constantly exercised in de- 
bating disputed questions in theology, and such ex- 
ercises were more than grateful to Hiibmaier. Here 
he imbibed that ardent love of religious controversy 
which all his life was quite as characteristic of him 
as love of the truth. All his writings show that he 
revelled in discussion for its own sake, though also 
without doubt as a means of eliciting truth. 

It was in 15 11, apparently, that Hiibmaier re- 
ceived the master's degree, of which Eck makes 
mention in the words already quoted. According 
to the customs of the time, this degree in itself 
gave him the right to teach, but he seems in ad- 
dition to have received a formal recognition as a 



1523] The Years of Preparation 33 

member of the Freiburg faculty. Here he might 
have remained but for a quarrel that broke out be- 
tween the university and Eck concerning the latter's 
salary. The pupil espoused his teacher's quarrel 
with more zeal than discretion, and the result was 
that both soon left the university. Eck received an 
appointment in the University of Ingolstadt, and 
his influence was sufficient to secure a position also 
for his devoted pupil and friend. 

The University of Ingolstadt had been established 
in 1472 by Duke Lewis the Rich, and was already a 
famous institution. It became still more celebrated 
through Eck's connection with it, and by the end 
of the sixteenth century is said to have had four 
thousand students. The town is a small one, and 
though now one of the great fortresses of the south- 
ern frontier of the German Empire, is a place of 
slight commercial importance, and its population of 
about twenty thousand is little if any in excess of 
its mediaeval size. Being thus outstripped in growth 
by other towns, it became less desirable as an edu- 
cational centre, and since 1826 the university has 
been merged in that of Munich. 

The original university building, however, is still 
3 



34 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 4 8i- 

standing, and the exterior has evidently suffered 
little alteration. It is in a quiet part of the town, 
a few squares distant from the chief market-place, 
where the old-fashioned horse-car deposits the 
visitor whom it has brought from the railway sta- 
tion, two miles away. The interior of the building 
is more modern than the outside, but the arrange- 
ment of the rooms is unchanged, and one easily be- 
lieves the assurance that it has undergone only such 
refitting as was necessary to adapt it for its present 
purpose, a gymnasium or high school for boys. The 
Aula, where disputations were once held and degrees 
conferred, is now a museum and library ; and in rooms 
where once echoed lectures and discussions on the- 
ology are now chemical and physical laboratories. 
The name of Eck is still remembered and honoured 
by the teachers, but that of Hiibmaier is forgotten, 
and the mention of it is greeted with a stare. 

On his first coming to Ingolstadt, Hiibmaier was 
entitled, by virtue of his master's degree, to lecture 
only on philosophy, but he was speedily made a 
Doctor in Theology. On September 29, 15 12, the 
degree was conferred, Dr. Eck presiding and deliver- 
ing an oration De Sacerrima Theologia (Concerning 









MEMORIAL TABLET TO DR. JOHN ECK, IN THE CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN, 
INGOLSTADT. 



iS23) The Years of Preparation 35 

Most Holy Theology) which contains the already 
cited passage on the candidate's scholastic life. At 
about this time Hiibmaier was also made university 
preacher and chaplain of the Church of the Virgin. 
This, the most interesting of the churches now 
found in Ingolstadt, had but recently been com- 
pleted in his day. It is a fine old Gothic edifice, 
with two tall square towers ; and the interior, apart 
from its interest as the place where Hiibmaier 
preached, attracts those who wish to see the last 
resting-place of Eck. He died in Ingolstadt in 
1543, and his body lies beneath a huge slab in a 
little chapel of the north aisle, above it a bronze 
tablet bearing his portrait and a suitable Latin in- 
scription. The Church of the Virgin was the uni- 
versity church in the sixteenth century. The receiv- 
ing of this important appointment warrants at least 
two inferences: that Hiibmaier had been ordained 
to the priesthood some time before, and that he had 
already won some reputation as a preacher. The 
making of the appointment would otherwise be in- 
comprehensible. Not even the influence of Eck 
would have induced the authorities to bestow a post 
so important upon a wholly untried man. 



36 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 4 8i- 

Hiibmaier's various talents enabled him speedily 
to take a leading position at Ingolstadt, and he ap- 
proved himself on trial as not only an eloquent 
lecturer and preacher, but a good man of affairs. 
At Easter, 15 15, he was made vice-rector of the uni- 
versity. The rector at that time was the Margrave 
Friedrich von Brandenburg, but the rectorship of 
a nobleman must have been merely nominal and 
ornamental, and the real manager of the affairs of 
the university was Hiibmaier. We have only one 
recorded incident of his administration of this office : 
an annalist of the city narrates that on one occasion 
he was fined ten ducats and confined to his house 
three days for releasing a student who had been 
imprisoned for assaulting a woman. 

The growing fame of Hiibmaier as a pulpit orator 
secured for him a call to Regensburg as chief 
preacher in the cathedral. The Danube with its 
tributaries was the great commercial highway of 
Southern Germany before railways were known; 
and Regensburg, or Ratisbon, situated at the con- 
fluence of the Danube and Regen, was then as now 
a much more important town than Ingolstadt. The 
cathedral, which was then nearing completion, is 



1523] The Years of Preparation 37 

surpassed in spaciousness and beauty only by that 
of Strassburg among the cities of that region. We 
have no information as to the motives that induced 
Htibmaier to accept this call ; he was doubtless am- 
bitious, and the new position seemed to him one of 
greater influence, and a quicker road to promotion, 
than a chair of theology. Possibly he had become 
conscious that his vocation was that of preacher and 
agitator rather than teacher. The decision to leave 
Ingolstadt was, at any rate, the turning-point in his 
life. Hitherto he had been under the influence, 
not to say control, of a stronger nature than his 
own; henceforth he becomes independent, free to 
develop according to the laws of his own nature. 
One other thing is also clear: Ingolstadt parted 
with him unwillingly. In later years, when he had 
to defend himself against many aspersions, the uni- 
versity and town council gave him written testi- 
monial of his innocence. During his residence 
there he had made many warm friends, some in- 
fluential, — among them the Count Palatine John. 
He left Ingolstadt January 25, 15 16, after labouring 
there three years and five months. 

On his arrival at Regensburg he found an anti- 



38 Balthasar Hubmaier [1481- 

Jewish movement in progress among the citizens, 
and he threw himself into the contest with ardour. 
In fact, he soon became the leader, and advocated 
his cause in the pulpit, in the street, in the market- 
place, before the magistrates. There had been a 
strong anti-Jewish feeling in Regensburg for more 
than a generation, due in large part to the peculiar 
position occupied by the Jews in the city. They 
lived in one of the oldest parts of the town, sur- 
rounded by a wall, and enjoyed many special privi- 
leges. They were lodged in what we should now 
call tenement-houses, — high, narrow buildings, — be- 
neath which were cellars and secret passages where 
they could hide from the officers of civil and re- 
ligious courts. At times, when the persecution was 
severe, they dared not go outside their own region, 
and then opened only a little gate through which 
could be passed the necessaries of life and the 
pledges of Christians who wished loans. Some- 
times at Easter even this loophole was closed for a 
week or more. 

The Jewish quarter of Regensburg disappeared 
long ago so completely that no trace of it is now 
to be found ; but the city of Augsburg contains a 




THE CATHEDRAL, REGENSBURQ. 

HERE HUBMAIER WAS CHIEF PREACHER, 1516-1520- 



1523] The Years of Preparation 39 

quarter that helps the modern traveller comprehend 
what it must have been. In Augsburg one of the 
most interesting sights is the "Fuggerei," a section 
of the town endowed in 15 19 by John Jacob Fugger, 
the Rothschild of the sixteenth century, to furnish 
free homes for the poor. The Fuggerei is a little 
walled city within the city, the gates of which are 
shut at night; and in this quarter are fifty-three 
houses, of two and three stories each, still tenanted 
at a merely nominal rent by poor Roman Catholic 
citizens of Augsburg — for the Fuggers were good 
Catholics, and the trust has been faithfully adminis- 
tered, as the founder intended it should be. But 
the Fuggerei is a model city quarter — clean, quiet, 
and orderly, while the Jewish quarter of Regens- 
burg, by all accounts, was dirty, noisy, and 
unsanitary. 

Although the Regensburg Jews were hard pressed 
by taxes and exactions of every sort, by the Em- 
peror, the Duke of Bavaria, the bishop of the 
diocese, the city, — and the city tax was higher for 
the Jews than for the burghers, — nevertheless, 
through their enterprise and system they had man- 
aged to get into their hands the principal part of the 



40 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

city's business, and the whole town and even the 
region about was in their debt. They had mort- 
gages on many of the surrounding estates in their 
coffers. It was charged, probably with truth, that 
they were receivers of stolen goods, and the plate on 
their boards was often made of vessels taken from 
the altars of Christian churches. But their chief 
crime, no doubt, was that they were too rich. The 
people saw only too clearly that, while their affairs 
went from worse to worst, while the public finances 
became more and more embarrassed, while the trade 
and manufactures of the city more and more de- 
clined, the Jews continued to prosper. What was 
more natural than that they should lay the blame 
for all this on the Jews? The priests, therefore, 
found willing ears to listen to their denunciation of 
the usury of this people, and the citizens flocked to 
hear such sermons. 

The Regensburg Jews were under the special pro- 
tection of the House of Austria, and at the meeting 
of the Reichstag at Cologne in 15 12 they appealed 
for protection against the constantly increasing per- 
secutions. It was the Imperial policy to hold this 
movement in check, and accordingly the fanaticism 



1523] The Years of Preparation 4 1 

that Hubmaier and others had aroused could not 
fail in time to bring the city into sharp collision 
with the Imperial Government. This actually hap- 
pened in 1 5 17. The first appeal of the Jews to the 
law was unavailing. Palgrave John, the adminis- 
trator of the bishopric, threatened with excommuni- 
cation any who should compel a Christian to pay 
usurious interest to a Jew. Papal confirmation of 
this decision was obtained, and Hubmaier preached 
from the pulpit: "We have brought a bull from 
Rome, the effect of which is to put under the bann 
every one who helps a Jew to his usurious interest." 
The Jews on their part obtained an Imperial man- 
date commanding the people of Regensburg to 
molest these people no further, and the next year, 
when the Reichstag met at Augsburg, the Jewish 
question was thoroughly discussed in a secret 
session. 

Hubmaier was sent to Augsburg to defend the 
clergy, and the city also had its representative there. 
The presence of this hated preacher against their 
race roused the Jews to special efforts, and they did 
everything in their power to secure his expulsion. 
So well did they use their influence and money that 



42 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

an Imperial messenger was sent to Regensburg, de- 
manding Hiibmaier's recall. The messenger more- 
over bore a mandate that the administrator should 
not summon Jews before his court again ; that the 
priests should cease preaching against them ; and 
declared the papal bull, having been issued with- 
out the Emperor's consent, to be null and void. 
The council attempted to temporise, saying that 
Hubmaier was not at Augsburg as a representative 
of the city, but as a cleric, and therefore not under 
their jurisdiction. The Imperial messenger refused 
to accept this disclaimer ; he replied that the council 
had the keys of the city, and if Hubmaier persisted 
in remaining at Augsburg, against their command, 
they could lock the gates against him. Reluctantly, 
we may presume, the city did as required. 

The decision of the Reichstag was in favour of 
the Jews; a special court and judge were appointed 
to try their cases. Hubmaier in the meantime ap- 
pears to have contumaciously remained at Augs- 
burg, and he had some difficulty in obtaining 
permission to return. Only the intercession of 
powerful friends, and a pledge on his part that he 
would henceforth show greater moderation, made 




INTERIOR OF THE REGENSBURQ CATHEDRAL. 

THE TOMB IN THE NAVE IS IN MEMORY OF BISHOP PHILIP WILLIAM, DUKE OF BAVARIA, AND 
> WAS ERECTED IN 1598. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 43 

his peace with the Emperor and enabled him to re- 
turn. It throws some light on his character at this 
time that he promised the city council on his arrival 
that he would do just the contrary, that he would 
not slacken his efforts against the Jews; while, as 
for his pledge to the Emperor, he said, the Church 
would hold him guiltless, and would defend him ! 
It is true that this was the common morality of 
ecclesiastics in his day, though a less frank avowal 
of perfidy was usual. 

It is difficult, from the facts we have at hand, to 
infer the motives that led Hiibmaier to take so 
active and so discreditable a part in this agitation. 
It is extremely probable that he honestly shared the 
prejudices of his time against the Jews, and even 
believed that persecution of them was a mark of a 
good Christian. Even after he had become more 
enlightened as to the true spirit of the gospel, he 
expressed no regret for his course, but rather gives 
it tacit approval, though he by no means tells the 
whole story of his misdeeds. In 1526 he makes 
this allusion to the matter: "When I was preacher 
in Regensburg, I saw the great oppression that the 
population suffered from the Jews; I saw that 



44 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 4 8i- 

ecclesiastical and secular statutes gave law and 
sentence against this. Then I said to the people 
from the pulpit, that they ought not to suffer in 
this wise for the future. But nobody repented, 
and all remained as before." * 

The agitation against the Jews in Regensburg 
dragged until after the death of Emperor Maxi- 
milian. In the spring of 15 19 they were driven 
out, and their synagogue was turned into a Chris- 
tian chapel, dedicated "to the beauteous Mary" 
{zur Schonen Maria). Shortly after, miracles were 
said to be wrought at this shrine, great excitement 
arose, people began to make pilgrimages to this 
altar, and gifts poured in. It was decided to build 
a church, and the corner-stone was laid September 
9th. On this, besides the name of the administrator 
and suffragan -bishop, appeared the name of Hub- 
maier, the first chaplain of the "beauteous Mary." 
On September 16th he gave to the council a list 
of fifty-four testimonies to the miracles wrought at 
this shrine. The fame of these rapidly extended 
through all the neighbouring district, and even 



1 From his examination while in prison at Zurich, Egli, Acten- 
sammlung zur Geschichte der Zurcher Reformation, S. 432. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 45 

farther, throughout Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia, 
and from everywhere came the throngs of pilgrims. 
Grave mischiefs and abuses accompanied these pil- 
grimages ; all the population seemed to be affected. 
When they went through a town by night women 
crowded to see them, often in their nightclothes; 
by day men left their business and followed as if 
they, too, would go on pilgrimage, some with a hay- 
fork in their hands, others with a scythe. The 
more sensible thought the people had all gone crazy. 
Impostors appeared, and at length the Regensburg 
council found itself compelled to adopt some meas- 
ures of repression, or at least of control. 

These pilgrimages aroused much attention and 
discussion in the whole Empire. As to Hubmaier's 
exact part in them there is almost nothing to war- 
rant an inference. One of his biographers 1 has 
accused him of fomenting the fanaticism, and says 
that good Catholics blamed him for his excessive 
zeal. Another 2 says that he preached against the 
fanaticism and did what he could to moderate it. 
Neither seems to have any grounds for so positive 
assertion; all that is certain is that Hubmaier's 

^oserth, p. 25. 2 Hoschek, i., 123. 



46 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

attitude, so far as known, was favourable to the pil- 
grimages, since he professed a complete faith in the 
miracles, and has left no record of his disapproval. 

In the year 1542, when the Reformation had ex- 
tended to Bavaria, the chapel of the " beauteous 
Mary" became a Lutheran church. The statues, 
pictures, and relics that had been accumulated were 
removed and for the most part destroyed. The 
chapel was enlarged, and the new edifice became 
known as the Nenpfarrkirche, which name it still 
bears. 1 A few of the relics and pictures have been 
preserved, and among these the curious visitor may 
still see an old and much-dimmed oil painting, that 
shows the original chapel, with its altar and relics, 
and a crowd of adoring pilgrims kneeling before it. 

The authorities of the city were not the only ones 
aroused to action by these pilgrimages. Regens- 



1 The photograph from which the illustration of the Neupfarr- 
kirche is made shows from the east side the church as it now exists. 
This end of the church, with its apse, is comparatively new ; the 
original chapel is the western part, from the line of the two towers, 
which are little altered. A transverse aisle separates the new por- 
tion of the interior from the old, and a gallery has been built in 
recent times within the latter. It would hardly be possible for any 
building to undergo a greater transformation than this chapel of the 
"beauteous Mary" shows — only the western walls and towers re- 
main in substantially the former condition. 




THE MODERN NEUPFARRKIRCHE, REQENSBURQ. 

THE FARTHER PART, WITH THE TOWERS, IS PART OF Hu'BMAIER'S CHAPEL ZUR SCHONEN MARIA. 



i 5 2 3 ] The Years of Preparation 47 

burg was the home of one of the largest, richest, 
and most famous Dominican monasteries in Europe. 
It had been made famous by the lectures of Albertus 
Magnus, next to Thomas Aquinas the greatest of 
the mediaeval scholastics. Though not formally a 
university, this had always been a celebrated school, 
and was still an important seat of learning. There 
were also two Benedictine abbeys: one originally 
founded by followers of Columban, and hence still 
known as the Schottenkirche; the other, St. Em- 
meram, founded in the seventh century, was also 
one of the oldest monastic establishments in Ger- 
many. These orders had for three centuries been 
the dominant religious force in Regensburg, and 
had for a still longer period been accustomed to 
absorb all the surplus wealth of the faithful. It was 
not to be reckoned that they would submit without 
a struggle to this sudden and startlingly successful 
rivalry of a new shrine and an upstart preacher be- 
longing to none of the orders. 

The great income of the chapel through the gifts 
of the pilgrims quickly roused the jealousy of the 
orders, especially of the Dominicans, and they 
began to attack the whole affair in their sermons. 



48 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 4 8i- 

From the same cause, there began a strife in 1520 
between the chapter of the cathedral and the city 
council over the patronage, which the city claimed, 
and its claim was confirmed by the court attorney 
of Nurnberg. Hiibmaier undertook to play the 
part of mediator, and set forth in behalf of the 
chapter that before there was any thought of build- 
ing the great church, offering-boxes had been placed 
under the pulpit in the cathedral and in the country 
churches, and liberal gifts for the building had been 
thus collected. It was evident therefore, that the 
new chapel had been erected not from the resources 
of the city, but from alms, and, this being the case, 
the council had no legal title to the patronage. In 
spite of the general esteem in which he was held 
among the citizens, this attempt at mediation was a 
failure. In consequence, the numerous grudges 
that were entertained against him among the clergy 
began to manifest themselves. He and his chapel 
were the object of their jealousy, and they preached 
against both with renewed vigour. 

It may have been these troubles that decided the 
question of Hiibmaier's longer stay in Regensburg. 
There is no ground whatever for the assertion of 



1523] The Years of Preparation 49 

his biographer, Hoschek, 1 that he had already be- 
come infected with heresy, and left in order that he 
might find a field where the Reformation was more 
likely to succeed than in Regensburg. So many 
circumstances conspire to negative this hypothesis, 
that it may be confidently pronounced unworthy of 
serious consideration. We know, both from his 
own testimony and from other sources, that he left 
Regensburg with the esteem of its citizens and the 
powerful friends that he had made. In 1526, reply- 
ing to the charge of his enemies that he secretly ran 
away from the city, he said : 

" How I departed from Ingolstadt and Regensburg 
know his serene highness, prince and lord John, Count 
Palatine and administrator at Regensburg, my especially 
gracious lord; also the most noble, honourable and wise 
captain, city treasurer and council of that city; also the 
university and the honourable council at Ingolstadt, all 
of whom gave me letters testifying my innocence of such 
invented and base untruths. Also William Wyeland, 
burgher and councilman at Regensburg, took me and my 
furniture on his iron-boat, and at midday starting from 
Regensburg brought me to Ulm. I was also exempted 
from all customs and tolls by reason of the letters of 
assistance which my gracious lord at Regensburg gave 
me." 2 



1 Hoschek, i., 122. 

2 Hubmaier, Ein kurze Entschuldigung, Nikolsburg, 1526. Op. 13. 



50 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 4 8i- 

He might have added that the city gave him, in 
grateful recognition of his distinguished services, a 
parting gift of forty gulden. This of itself is suffi- 
cient proof that he departed with no odour of heresy 
or misdeed clinging to his garments. He left be- 
hind him the repute of being an unusually faithful 
and zealous son of the Church. It is indeed sur- 
prising that neither at this time, nor for some time 
later, does Hiibmaier show any sympathy with the 
Reformation ; not even do his words or acts betray 
the consciousness that any such movement was in 
progress. The final persecution of the Jews in 
Regensburg was coincident with the posting of 
Luther's theses, and the miracles and pilgrimages 
happened in the year of the Leipzig disputation. 
The old friendship between Eck and Hiibmaier 
showed as yet no signs of fracture, and one would 
have thought this would have been sufficient to at- 
tract the latter's attention to a controversy in which 
his former master was taking so prominent a part. 
Perhaps his attention was attracted, perhaps he 
read what was printed on both sides of the con- 
troversy, but if so his own personal concerns so far 
absorbed his attention that no immediate result 



1523] The Years of Preparation 51 

was produced, whatever effect might have followed 
later. 

From Regensburg Hiibmaier went to Waldshut, a 
little town in the Breisgau, on the Rhine, beautiful 
for situation but of no commercial significance. Its 
military importance was considerable, and might be 
again in certain contingencies, as it completely com- 
mands the Rhine, and could be held by a relatively 
small force. This living was part of the patronage 
of the convent of Konigsfeld, in the canton of 
Aargau, and how the choice fell upon Hiibmaier is 
not known. 1 Nor is it easy to see how he came to 
choose such a field of labour in preference to 
Regensburg. The walls of Waldshut have been 
long since removed, and the town has spread some- 
what beyond its ancient limits, but even now it 
must have a population considerably below four 
thousand, and a walk of ten minutes will take one 
from one end to the other of the "city." There 



1 Loserth (p. 25) conjectures that he secured the place through the 
favour of the Count Palatine ; Hoschek (i., 123) is sure that the 
intercession of the Swiss reformers obtained it for him. Against 
the latter supposition the known facts are decisive : it was certainly 
not until after his settlement at Waldshut that the acquaintance be- 
tween Hiibmaier and the Swiss leaders began, as we shall presently 
see. 



52 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1481- 

seems to be but one church — the same that stood in 
Hiibmaier's day and in which he preached — and it 
is apparently quite ample for the needs of the town. 

Possibly the character of the people, rather than 
the size of the town, constituted the attraction for 
Hiibmaier. They were thoroughly German in 
blood and speech, and had the characteristics of 
that people; but, in addition, their proximity to 
Switzerland and their dwelling among the mountains 
had given to them a passionate love of liberty. They 
were a strong, resolute, simple people, loyal to the 
House of Hapsburg and the religion of their fathers. 
They had no intention of being disloyal to prince or 
religion, as they had inherited the authority of both, 
and they had every intention of maintaining stoutly 
what they regarded as their own privileges and 
rights. 

In such a town and among such a people Hiib- 
maier began his work in the spring of 1521, and 
soon found himself quite at home among them. 
For two years he remained a zealous Catholic, con- 
tinuing the observance of all the ancient practices, 
and even introducing new ceremonies. In great 
thunder-storms he stationed himself at the church 



1523] The Years of Preparation 53 

door with the Host and blessed the clouds; at 
Easter and on other occasions, as when the Host 
was carried to the sick, he saw to it that everything 
was done with much pomp and state ; he was par- 
ticular that two communicants from the council 
should be present at the sacrament ; to Mary and 
all the saints he paid great veneration. 

But during these same two years a great change in 
his religious convictions was beginning, and perhaps 
these outward marks of zeal were only attempts on 
his part to confirm himself in a faith that was 
wavering. He was giving his leisure hours to the 
study of the Scriptures, in which, so far as we 
know, he was now beginning for the first time to 
take a real interest. How much he became ab- 
sorbed in this study his letters prove. He devoted 
especial attention to the Pauline epistles, first read- 
ing the letter to the Romans, and then the letters 
to the Corinthians. There could be but one result 
of such study, and though we have no definite 
record of Hiibmaier's conversion, his life from this 
time indicates that at about the end of the year 
1522 he had come to see that the Catholic Church 
had departed, in doctrine and practice, from the 



54 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

teachings of the apostles ; and he had also, in conse- 
quence of his study of the New Testament, come 
to a clear understanding of the gospel, and sought 
his personal salvation from Christ himself, and not 
from the Church and its sacraments. 

A visit to Switzerland, in June, 1522, was an im- 
portant factor in producing this change. He first 
journeyed to Basel, where he made the acquaintance 
of Busch, Glareanus, and Erasmus. He conferred 
with the latter on the doctrine of purgatory, and 
some dark places in the Gospel of John, but received 
little aid. He was not at all pleased with Erasmus, 
in fact, and said of him afterwards, "Erasmus 
speaks freely but writes cautiously." From Basel 
he went to (the Swiss) Freiburg. "I have found 
this quite other than its name implies," he writes; 
"it is not free but imprisoned, and rent with faction 
and narrowness." In Basel he noted that the 
cloisters were becoming more empty from day to 
day, and that the nuns were marrying. Switzerland 
was seething with disaffection to the old faith, and 
on the eve of a religious revolution. Hubmaier re- 
turned to Waldshut and plunged anew into the 
study of the Pauline epistles. At about this time 



1523] The Years of Preparation 55 

also we find that he is reading some of the tracts of 
Luther that had been so widely scattered among the 
German people. 

At this juncture of affairs, his friends at Regens- 
burg recalled him to be preacher at the chapel of the 
"beauteous Mary." The old dispute between the 
chapter and the council had been compromised, 
through the intervention of the Duke of Bavaria. 
The bishop was to have spiritual jurisdiction over 
the church, and the right of confirmation and in- 
vestiture of all foundations, besides an indemnity in 
ready money ; on the other hand, the council had 
the patronage of the chapel and the management of 
its income. Hiibmaier began his work there on 
Advent Sunday, 1522, 1 and found the chapel well 
filled with both clergy and laity, especially the 
council, to his great pleasure. His salary was fixed 
at fifty gulden, besides thirty kreutzer for the week- 
day services. In return he was to sing or have 
sung three masses a week, preach as often as the 
provost required, have processions, and contribute 
of his means to the aid of pilgrims. 

He began preaching from the Gospel of Luke 



Egli, Actensammlung, No. 911. 



56 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

and promised a course of sermons from that book. 
There is no doubt that he was now strongly inclin- 
ing to the new doctrine and that his preaching was 
of the evangelical type, though he practised the 
rites of the Church. In a letter written at this time 
to a friend in Ulm, he says that Christ is preached 
in unadulterated fashion in Niirnberg, in spite of 
the opposition of Frederick of Austria and other 
princes, and adds: "Also among us in Bavaria is 
the gospel preached." But with him this return to 
Regensburg was an experiment, as is shown by the 
fact that he had taken care not to resign his pastor- 
ate at Waldshut, and had so provided himself a way 
of retreat. Inclined as he now was to the reformed 
doctrine, he could see little prospect of its progress 
in Bavaria; Waldshut offered a more hopeful field. 
Accordingly, before the close of his trial year, 
March I, 1 523, he gave up his position at Regens- 
burg and returned to Waldshut. That he was still 
held in high esteem by the Regensburgers is shown 
by the fact that they presented him at his departure 
with fifteen gulden. 1 



1 A special resolution of the council makes mention of this pledge 
of their friendship. Cf. Loserth, p. 21. 



1523] The Years of Preparation 57 

On taking up his work anew at Waldshut, Hub- 
maier almost from the first gave decisive proofs of 
his change of religious convictions. In a month 
after his return we find him in active communication 
with the Swiss reformers. He visited Zurich and 
conferred with Zwingli on various subjects, espe- 
cially on the baptism of infants, of which he had 
been able to find no trace in the New Testament. 
From Zurich he went to St. Gall, and made the 
acquaintance of Joachim Watt, known as Vadianus. 
He had established for himself the reputation of an 
evangelical preacher, and was asked to preach. 
This he did several times, to the great pleasure and 
edification of the people. It was on his return to 
Waldshut that he seems to have made known his 
change of views and begun to introduce innovations. 

It first becomes clear, however, that he has broken 
forever with the old faith from the part that he 
took in the second religious disputation at Zurich, 
held by order of the Government in the council 
hall, October 26-28, 1523. This discussion had 
been forced on Zwingli and the council by the more 
radical members of the reforming party at Zurich, 
who wished for an immediate and thorough-going 



58 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

reformation of religion, on the basis of the Holy 
Scriptures. Zwingli was till then in sympathy with 
the aims of this radical element, so far as they had 
been formulated and were understood by him, but 
it was his opinion that they were too precipitate in 
action and were inclined to press the work of refor- 
mation too rapidly. So far, however, the difference 
was concerning methods rather than principles, nor 
did the discussion develop a more serious difference 
than this. 

The questions discussed at this gathering were 
the use of images and the celebration of the mass, 
two of the three days being given chiefly to the first 
subject. On the first day, after Zwingli, Leo, and 
others had quite fully discussed the matter, — all 
being agreed in principle that images are contrary 
to the gospel order, but Zwingli counselling moder- 
ation in action,— Hubmaier spoke as follows: 

" He who is the omnipotent and eternal God has com- 
manded us, through his servant Moses, thus: ' If thou 
meet thine enemy's ox or ass going astray, thou shalt 
surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of 
him that hateth thee lying under his burden, thou shalt 
forbear to leave him, thou shalt surely release it with 
him' [Ex. xxhi., 4, 5.]. And Christ admonishes us to 



1523] The Years of Preparation 59 

the same effect : ' Which of you shall have an ass or an 
ox fallen into a well, and will not straightway draw him 
up on a Sabbath day? ' [Luke xiv., 5]. And much more 
we ought to pity that man who has gone astray in those 
things that pertain to his salvation, or who has fallen into 
some deep ditch of error, so that our labours may release 
him and bring him back. And it is as clear as day that 
for ages infinite errors and abuses have been brought into 
the Christian Church by Satan, who never rests; for he 
is certainly concerned with the business of images and 
the mass. I can only praise, therefore, the most reverend 
council of this ancient town, which ordered that this 
friendly gathering should be held to discuss these matters, 
so that the sharp differences of many concerning religion 
might be adjusted in a friendly way and without any 
disturbance. That surely cannot be done in a more fit- 
ting way, than by hearing passages from both Testaments 
produced in the midst of us. For in all disputes con- 
cerning faith and religion, the Scripture alone, proceed- 
ing from the mouth of God, ought to be our level and 
rule. For the Lord Himself has put that judge on the 
throne: 'And in a controversy they shall stand to judge: 
according to my judgments shall they judge it ' (Ezek. 
xliv., 24). Wherefore the Lord has ordered that the 
Scriptures shall be searched, and commanded that we 
hear Moses and the prophets ; for he will not receive the 
testimony of man. Christ has said the same, likewise 
Paul and all the apostles. For, however often they had 
to contend against Satan or men evidently wicked, they 
pressed upon such the Scriptures, as the most fitting 
judge of every controversy, and by means of these alone 
they won the victory. For the Scripture is the sole light 
and is a true lantern, by whose light all the fictions of 



60 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

the human mind may be discovered and all darkness be 
dispelled. The prophet David testifies to this in the say- 
ing, ' Thy word is a lamp to my feet' [Ps. cxix., 105]. 
And Christ Jesus warns us that we should take the lamp 
of that saving word in our hands, that, when the bride- 
groom comes, we may enter with him to the eternal 
marriage feast. Wherefore also, those errors that have 
sprung up concerning images and the mass should be ex- 
amined and corrected by the sole rule of the word of God. 
Moreover, whatever shall be founded on this will endure 
forever; for the word of God is eternal and immortal." 

On the second day he spoke somewhat more at 
length and in less general terms against images : 

" That images ought never to be made or retained was 
sufficiently proved yesterday from the holy Testaments. 
And for my part, I wish none had ever been brought 
into a church of Christians. For what Ex. xx., 4, says, 
is as clear and plain as it is valid and incontrovertible. 
For by two eloquent laws it is forbidden not merely to 
worship images, but even to make them. What is writ- 
ten in Deut. v., 6 sq. is even plainer, for there in three 
commands God removes and overthrows everything of 
the kind: ' I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. ' 
Secondly, ' Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven 
image, the likeness of any form that is in the heaven 
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
water under the earth. ' Thirdly, ' Thou shalt not bow 
down thyself unto them nor serve them; for I, the Lord 
thy God, am a jealous God, etc' Whence he orders 
them to burn with fire and curse him who makes such 



1523] The Years of Preparation 61 

things. And all the people shall answer and say Amen 
(Deut. xxvii., 15). 1 I will add another two-horned argu- 
ment that will easily overturn images. To have images 
is either commanded or it is not commanded. If it is 
commanded, let the Scriptures be produced and at once 
all strife will be ended. But if it was never commanded 
that we have them, they are certainly of no use. For 
whatever God does not teach, either by his word or his 
works, is altogether vain and useless. For as God alone 
is good so it follows that what is good comes from God 
alone. He that has said other than this charges false- 
hood against God the Father, Christ the Son, and the 
holy Paul. God the Father: ' What thing soever I com- 
mand you, that shall ye observe to do: thou shalt not 
add thereto, nor diminish from it' [Deut. xii., 32]. 
Christ the Son : ' Every plant which my heavenly Father 
planted not shall be rooted up ' [Matt, xv., 13]. Paul: 
'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin' [Rom. xiv., 23]. 
Another thing also follows these. One thing or the 
other must be granted: images are either useful or use- 
less to the Church. But if they are of no use, what are 
they for, I pray? But if they are of some profit, shall we 
say that God has proclaimed less than the truth when he 
teaches in Is. xliv., 9, that they are profitable for no- 
thing? In view of these things, it is blasphemy if we 
teach that images call, move, and draw our souls to piety. 
For it is Christ who calls the sinner, who moves him to 
what is good, invites him to the heavenly marriage feast ; 
God the Father draws those who come to Christ. Since 
then images, O woe! have at some time been brought 
into the Church, there is need of great care and prudent 



1 Hubmaier, or his reporter, has combined Deut. vii., 5, with the 
passage cited by him. 



62 Balthasar Hubmaier [1481- 

consideration lest any one be made to stumble and the 
general peace of believers be disturbed. For up to the 
present there are many who hold firmly to images. It is 
fitting, therefore, to quote diligently to such the word of 
God from both Testaments, and to place it before peo- 
ple's eyes. For so it will exert its own force and potency, 
so that all images will soon fall down. For it is impos- 
sible that, if the word of God be preached, it should not 
bring forth fruit in the place where God has sent it (Is. 
lv., 10, n). Paul said this at Athens and many other 
places, as the Acts bear witness. Therefore, if this be 
done, individual believers will learn that images are of 
no value, and so it will come to pass that by common 
consent of the whole Church, without any trouble, it will 
be ordered that images be removed. And then it will be 
said that the word of God has accomplished the very 
thing for which it was sent." 

The discussion of the third day related exclusively 
to the mass — a subject also discussed somewhat on 
the afternoon of the second day. This came home 
to all the participants and aroused great interest, as 
was manifest in the exceptionally lively debate. 
Zwingli was cautious in his statements, for while he 
repudiated the idea of actual sacrifice in connection 
with the mass, he seemed to admit that the euchar- 
ist might be a representation of Christ's sacrifice, 
though not a repetition. Hubmaier spoke again, 
making this contribution to the discussion: 



1523] The Years of Preparation 63 

"Although there are still several abuses left in the 
mass (which I prefer to call Christ's Testament, or the 
memorial of his death) this will certainly be seen to be 
the chief cause of all these : that we celebrate mass as a 
sacrifice. But, to mention that about which my mind is 
employed (though I am always ready to be taught bet- 
ter), I cannot announce it in any other way than Zwingli 
and Leo have done — by saying that the mass is no sacri- 
fice, but rather a publishing of Christ's Testament, in 
which is celebrated the memorial of his death, through 
which he no doubt offered himself once for all on the 
altar of the cross and cannot be offered again. And 
whoever celebrates mass otherwise, undertakes to seal a 
document not yet written/ The reason that moves me 
to say this is found in Matt, xxvi., Luke xxii., Mark 
xiv., 1 Cor. xi., Hebrews vii. and ix. Christ says, 
'This do,' but not 'This offer.' Whence it follows, 
first, that the mass, if it is held to be a sacrifice, profits 
neither living nor dead. For as I cannot believe for 
another, so it is not permitted me to celebrate mass for 
another; since truly this was instituted by Christ as a 
sign, in which the faith of believers is confirmed. 

" Secondly, since the body and blood of Christ are 
seals and tokens of Christ's words that it is customary to 
recite in the mass, priests ought to use and proclaim no- 
thing but the pure and clear word of God, of which these 
are signs. Whoever celebrates the mass otherwise errs 
from the truth. 

" Thirdly, he who does not proclaim the word of God 
does not celebrate the mass. Christ acknowledges the 
same, and Paul, his disciple: ' This do in remembrance 
of me.' 'As often as ye do this, ye do show forth 
the Lord's death.' Therefore it is necessary either 



64 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

that Christ yield his declaration, or our conclusion is 
true. 

" Fourthly, the mass should be read in Latin to the 
Latins, in French to the French, and in German to the 
Germans. For there can be no doubt but that Christ 
used a language at the supper with his disciples that 
could be understood by all of them. And likewise when 
the mass is celebrated, it is ridiculous to recite Latin 
words to a German who knows nothing of the Latin lan- 
guage. What else is this than to hide the Lord whom 
we ought to proclaim ? Paul wishes so to speak in the 
Church as to be understood by all, and he would rather 
speak five words with the understanding than thousands 
in an unknown tongue (i Cor. xiv., 19). 

" Fifthly, he who undertakes to celebrate mass truly 
ought to feed not only himself, but also others hungering 
and thirsting in spirit, and that under both kinds. Christ 
taught this by both word and deed (Matt, xxvi., 27). 
Whoever therefore shall teach otherwise and administer 
otherwise, insolently violates Christ's Testament. This 
even an angel from heaven has no right to do, still less a 
man (Gal. i., 8). 

" These, brethren, are my opinions concerning images 
and the mass, which I have learned from the Holy Scrip- 
tures. But if there is any error in them, I pray and be- 
seech you, by Jesus Christ our only Saviour, and the day 
of his last judgment, to condescend to set me right 
through the Holy Scriptures in a fraternal and Christian 
manner. I can err, for I am a man, but I cannot be a 
heretic, for I am willing to be taught better by anybody. 
And if any one will teach me better, I acknowledge that I 
shall owe him great thanks ; I will confess the error, and 
in accordance with the decision of the divine word I will 



1523] The Years of Preparation 65 

gladly and willingly, with greatest obedience, submit my- 
self to you and follow you most carefully, as followers of 
Christ. I have spoken. It is yours to judge me and set 
me right. I will pray Christ to give you his grace for 
this purpose." 

The decision of the Zurich council l was studiously 
moderate — far too moderate to satisfy the radical 
reformers, who now began to distrust Zwingli and 
to draw away from him. The removal of the images 
was not ordered, and as for the mass, each priest 
was left to do as he liked, celebrate it or not, ac- 
cording to his own conscience and understanding of 
the word of God — in short, the council wished to let 
matters drift a while longer before taking vigorous 
action. 

On the whole, in these addresses Htibmaier shows 
himself to be in agreement with the radical party 
that was now fast developing in Zurich. His views 
are more like those of Conrad Grebel, the spokes- 
man of this party, than Zwingli's ; yet his attitude 
is not one of antagonism to the Zurich leader. But 
it is evident that his views have undergone a great 



1 For the text of the decree, which was dated November 17th, see 

Egli, Actensammlung, p. 173, No. 436 ; cf. Fiisslin, Beytrdge, ii., 

43-46. 
5 



66 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 4 8i- 

transformation since his coming to Waldshut — he is 
now an evangelical, in the fullest significance of the 
term. Once for all he has taken his stand on the 
principle that for him the voice of Scripture is the 
only voice of authority, and consequently the only 
voice that he will obey. 

A careful reading of the account of the disputa- 
tion 1 confirms the idea that Zwingli did not at any 
time differ so much in doctrine from Grebel and 
Hubmaier, as in policy. He was in favour of pro- 
ceeding slowly with the reform in Zurich, for many 
reasons. He had no objection to the radical pro- 
gramme as an ultimate goal, — he only objected to 
the attempt to realise it at once. He was probably 
calculating carefully just how fast the council could 
be persuaded to go, and just what changes the 
Zurich people would approve. The difference be- 
tween them lay in the sphere of politics rather than 
in the domain of theology, but this the radicals 
could not see. 

Excursus on the Spelling of Hubmaier s Name 

It is no easy matter to decide how the name of the 
subject of this biography should be spelled. He lived 

1 The full account of this second disputation may be found in 
Zwingli's Op. i., 481 sq. 



i 5 2 3 ] The Years of Preparation 67 

in an age when men had only vague ideas of orthography, 
especially in the matter of proper names. The oldest 
known form of the name is in the matriculation book of 
the University of Freiburg, where it is entered under 
date of May i, 1503, as Baldesar Hiebmayr. The 
Christian name is spelled by contemporaries Balthazar 
Baldazar, Baldasar, Baltassar, and even Walthausar, 
while of the surname one finds not fewer than twenty 
spellings, namely, Hubmar, Huebmar, Huebmaier, 
Huebmer, Hubmejer, Hubemor, Hubmor, Huebmor, 
Hubmaier, Hoebmoer, Huebmor, Huebmar, Hubmor, 
Hubmeyer, Hubmoyer, Huebmayr, Hiebmaier, Hub- 
mer, Hiibmer, Hubmair — to say nothing of such forms 
as Hilcmerus, Isubmarus, etc. 

This ought not to surprise us, since it is well-known 
that there are more than threescore ways of spell- 
ing the name Shakespeare. Generally speaking, the 
principle should no doubt be recognised that a man 
knows best how to spell and pronounce his own name. 
But what are we to do if he knows how to spell it in 
several ways ? Such is the case with the man with whom 
we have to do. In the only existing autograph (so far 
as known), which is preserved in the archives at Schaff- 
hausen, and bears date of 1524, his signature is Baldasar 
Huebmor. In his printed works he later adopted for the 
first name the spelling Balthasar, and as to that all are 
now practically agreed. During the last two years of his 
life he published seventeen tracts that are now in exist- 
ence, and on the pages of thirteen of these he prints 
his name Huebmor, or Hubmor, essentially the same 
spelling. 

Examination of the variant spellings shows that they 
are all attempts, more or less careful, to represent the 



68 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1481-1523] 

same sounds. There is no real question as to how the 
name sounded in the ears of contemporaries. The first 
syllable is so frequently spelled Hieb, Hub, or Hueb, 
as to leave no doubt that the vowel sound was that of «, 
and the cases of variation are easily explicable on the 
theory that the umlaut was often carelessly dropped. 
The first syllable cannot possibly have sounded as Hoob. 
The vowel sound in the second syllable was obscure, and 
as it fell upon different ears might be represented almost 
equally well by mayr, meyer, maier, mor, or mar. 

On the whole, therefore, the spelling Hiibmaier seems 
to come nearest to reproducing the true sounds in ac- 
cordance with modern usage. 



CHAPTER III 

HUBMAIER AN EVANGELICAL REFORMER 
1524 

RETURNING from the disputation at Zurich 
* ^ committed to the work of reform, and full of 
the proverbial zeal of the new convert, Hiibmaier set 
to work with energy to teach his townspeople the 
pure gospel. It was natural that he should attempt 
to apply the method that had been successful in 
Zurich, and accordingly one of his first steps was to 
invite all the clergy of the district to a disputation. 
As a preliminary, he drew up a series of theses, 
which appeared in print the following June, in this 
form: 

" 1. Faith alone makes us just before God. 

"2. This faith is the knowledge of the mercy of God, 
which he manifested to us through the giving of his only 
begotten Son. Thereby are overthrown all sham Chris- 
tians, who have only ' a historical faith ' in God. 

69 



70 Balthasar HUbmaier [i 524 

" 3. This faith cannot remain dead, but must manifest 
itself toward God in thanksgiving, toward our fellow- 
men in works of brotherly love. Thereby are all cere- 
monies destroyed, tapers, psalms, holy-water. 

"4. Only those works are good that God has com- 
manded, and only those are evil that he has forbidden. 
Thereby fall fish, flesh, cowls, plates. 

"5. The mass is no sacrifice, but a memorial of the 
death of Christ. Hence it may be offered as a sacrifice 
neither for the dead nor for the living. Thereby fall 
masses for souls and -the like. 

"6. When this memorial is celebrated, the death of 
our Lord should be preached in their mother tongue to 
believers. Thereby fall private masses. 

"7. Images are good for nothing; wherefore such ex- 
pense should be no longer wasted on images of wood and 
stone, but bestowed upon the living, needy images of 
God. 

"8. Just as every Christian should believe and be 
baptised for himself, so it is his privilege to judge from 
the holy Scriptures if the bread and wine are rightly 
given him by his pastor. 

"9. As Christ alone died for our sins and we are bap- 
tised in his name alone, so should we call upon him only 
as our mediator and intercessor. Thereby fall all 
pilgrimages. 

"10. It is better to explain a single verse of a psalm 
in the vernacular of the people, than to sing five whole 
psalms in a foreign language not understood by the 
people. Thereby vanish matins, prime, tierce, nones, 
vespers, compline, and vigils. 

"11. All doctrines not planted by God himself are 
profitless, condemned, and must be rooted up. Here 



1524] An Evangelical Reformer 7 1 

fall to the ground Aristotle, the Scholastics, as Thomas, 
Scotus, Bonaventura and Occam, and all teachers who 
in their origin are not from God. 

" 12. The hour is coming and is already here, in 
which no one will be considered a priest but he who 
preaches the word of God. Thereby fall the sayers of 
early mass, suffragists, requiemists, sayers of interces- 
sory masses. 

" 13. It is the duty of church-members, to whom the 
pure word of God is clearly preached, to provide food 
and clothing for the ministers. Thereby go to the 
ground the courtiers, pensioners, incorporators, absen- 
tees, liars and dream-babblers. 

"14. Whoso seeks purgatory, the trust of those whose 
god is the belly, seeks the grave of Moses — it will never 
be found. 

"15. To forbid priests to marry and wink at their 
carnal lewdness is to release Barabbas and put Christ to 
death. 

"16. To promise chastity in the strength of man is 
nothing else than to fly over the sea without wings. 

"17. Whoso for worldly advantage denies or remains 
silent concerning the word of God, sells the blessing of 
God, as Esau sold his birthright, and will also be denied 
by Christ. 

"18. Whoso does not earn his bread by the sweat of 
his brow is in condemnation, [and] is not worthy of the 
food that he eats. Herewith are all idlers condemned, 
whoever they may be. ' ' 

Although the title-page of the four-page pam- 
phlet in which these theses appeared informs us that 



7 2 Balthasar Hubmaier [1524 

they were "disputed at Waldshut by Dr. Balthas- 
sar Fridberger in 1524," there is reason to doubt 
whether such a disputation actually occurred, 
though doubtless the author expected a discussion 
when he sent the writing to press. There is no 
reason to doubt, however, that he proceeded to 
reduce the doctrine of the theses immediately to 
practice, with the consent of the people of Wald- 
shut. One exception should be made to this state- 
ment, and it is an important one : the eighth thesis 
clearly implies the doctrine and practice with which 
the name of Hubmaier afterwards became insep- 
arably associated, but this was clear neither to him 
nor to others at this time. 

From various sources, mostly hostile, but in this 
case seemingly well informed, we learn that the 
actual religious reforms made in Waldshut during 
the early months of the year 1524 were about as 
follows: the services of the church were held in 
German, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist, 
which was administered in both kinds, the people 
being taught that they received only bread and 
wine as a memorial of Christ's death. Pictures 
and images were banished from the church, and in 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 73 

some cases at least burnt. 1 Tapers were banished 
from the altar, and the costly vestments, chalices, 
and jewelled ornaments were sold. The people 
were allowed to eat meat on Fridays, the observ- 
ance of holy days was greatly abbreviated, and the 
rule of celibacy for the clergy was abrogated. In 
pursuance of this last reform, Htibmaier antici- 
pated the acts of Luther and Zwingli by marrying 
the daughter of a burgher named Elizabeth Hug- 
line, who with rare fidelity and bravery shared his 
later fortunes. The wedding was celebrated with 
a great feast, given by their townsmen in their 
honour. 

In this work at Waldshut he ranged himself by 
the side of the other evangelical reformers. By all 
the writers of the day, friendly or hostile, he is now 
classed with Luther and Zwingli. In his general 
ideal of practical reform, as well as in the doctrines 
that he preached, he was in substantial agreement 
at this period with his fellow-workers. Owing 
doubtless to his closer proximity to Zwingli, he 



1 That Htibmaier was no fanatical iconoclast we know from Faber, 
who informs us that after the catastrophe at Waldshut there were 
found a costly and beautiful Joachim, besides a vesper picture and 
a Sebastian. Quoted by Loserth, p. 44. 



74 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 

was more influenced by the Swiss reformer than by 
the German ; and perhaps they had more in com- 
mon in their method of interpreting the Scriptures. 
It required another year to make the differences 
that were from the first potential show themselves 
clearly in thought and action. 

In the meantime, Hubmaier was to learn that the 
path of the reformer is by no means strewn with 
roses. His visit to Zurich had attracted the atten- 
tion of the Austrian authorities, and his conduct 
after his return was closely scrutinised. Moreover, 
though he carried the people of Waldshut with him 
in his reforms, and to the last had their complete 
confidence and warm affection, he was not without 
opposition from the clergy. He would have easily 
surmounted this difficulty, however, had there been 
no interference from without. Interference there 
was, beginning early, increasing in vehemence, and 
at length bringing disaster upon him and his work. 

Not long after his return from Zurich commis- 
sioners from Prince Ferdinand came to Waldshut, 
and summoned the mayor and council of the town 
to a meeting. Three charges were presented 
against them : (i) The city was disobedient to the 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 75 

Imperial and episcopal commands, in that they 
tolerated a Doctor who preached things opposed to 
the Emperor and bishop. This Doctor the Emperor 
would no longer suffer to remain in Waldshut. (2) 
The Doctor preached the gospel to his believers 
according to his own notions, and gave great scan- 
dal to the people and neighbourhood. (3) At the 
debate in Zurich, he gave himself out as a repre- 
sentative of the four cities and the Black Forest, a 
thing most distasteful to Emperor and princes, and 
injurious to the cities and Black Forest. Especially 
he had called himself "of Waldshut," which he had 
no right to do. 

The mayor and council replied in substance : All 
the Imperial and episcopal mandates had been duly 
published; they were not aware that Htibmaier 
preached anything contrary to them — that was only 
a groundless report of his enemies. That he misin- 
terpreted the gospel they did not know ; they knew 
his intention to be to preach nothing but the un- 
adulterated gospel. That he had preached this and 
nothing else, the dean and all the clergy of Wald- 
shut would testify. That he had represented him- 
self as a delegate of the four cities at Zurich there 



76 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 

was no proof; they believed he had not done it, 
since he had conducted himself always so truly and 
honourably at Waldshut that they could believe no 
such thing of him. They added that it would be 
hard on Hubmaier to send him to Constance to the 
bishop. It would be better, they suggested, for 
the commissioners to hear the Doctor, then they 
could give a veracious report of all these things. 

The commissioners were surprised and enraged 
at this firm answer. They replied that they had no 
authority to make such an inquiry, and demanded 
anew the immediate expulsion of the offending 
Doctor. To this the authorities would not consent, 
and with warnings of what might happen for such 
contumacy the commissioners went to make report 
to their master. From that time Ferdinand was 
the implacable enemy of Hubmaier, and sought his 
life ; he was also determined to reduce Waldshut to 
obedience. Whatever the preacher said or did was 
made the subject of accusation by his enemies, of 
whom he had some in the town and many outside 
of it, both to the prince and to the bishop. It 
must be admitted that these accusations were not 
wholly malicious; Hubmaier was openly attempting 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 77 

to subvert the Catholic doctrines and practice, 1 and 
it is no wonder if those who still believed in the 
Catholic doctrine and practice should look upon his 
course with grief and even determine to stop him if 
they could. 

There was an apparent respite from these troubles 
offered him by a new invitation from his old flock 
at Regensburg to visit them again. To their letter 
he returned the following response : 

" I am quite conscious that I should have put myself 
again at the disposal of your wisdom, yet for my own 
safety it cannot be exactly on the Sunday after Easter 
[the time they had specified]. In the meantime so great 
plague and pursuit has befallen those who preach the 
divine, true and pure word, that I have not dared to 
venture. Further, I hear with great sadness how in 
your city of Regensburg more men preach vanity than 
the pure word of God. That makes my heart ache ; for 
what does not flow forth from the living word is dead 
before God. Therefore says Christ, Search the Script- 
ures. He does not say, Follow the old customs — 
though I did nothing else when I was the first time 
with you. However, I did it ignorantly. Like others, 
I was blinded and possessed by the doctrine of men. 



1 For example, his sermon on April ioth, in which he said, on the 
text " I am the good shepherd" : " Those who do not enter in by 
the door and are thieves and robbers are those pastors who preach 
the legends, untruths, and dreams of the monks, [and] withhold the 
gospel from the people, which is the true soul-murder." 



78 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 

Therefore I openly confess before God and all men, 
that I then became a Doctor and preached some years 
among you and elsewhere, and yet had not known the way 
unto eternal life. Within two years has Christ for the 
first time come into my heart to thrive. I have never 
dared to preach him so boldly as now, by the grace of 
God. I lament before God that I so long lay ill of this 
sickness. I pray him truly for pardon; I did this un- 
wittingly, wherefore I write this. I wonder if your 
preachers now will say, I am now of another disposition 
than formerly, that I confess and condemn all doctrine 
and preaching, such as were mine among you and else- 
where, that is not grounded in the divine word. And if 
they cast at you the holy councils, believe it not; men 
will deceive you, as they have taunted us a year and a 
day, by promising to hold a council, but it does not 
appear. They know well that a single woman — such as 
the pious Christian woman, Argula von Stauff ' — knows 
more of the divine word than such red-capped ones will 
ever see and lay hold of. Yield yourselves to God, trust 
him, build on his word, and he will not forsake you. 
Whether he gives a short life or a long, you will have 
eternal life yonder. And should men call you heretics, 
be joyful, for your reward will be great in heaven. The 
sophist-heads at once called us heretics, but since they 
make us heretics in their writings, they let the stone lie 



1 Of Argula von Grumbach, born Freiin (baroness) von Stauff, 
little is known save what may be gathered from several references 
to her in Hubmaier's writings, and a single entry in the Chronicles 
of Regensburg. She was evidently a pious woman of high rank, 
well read in the Scriptures, and an ardent promoter of the new 
evangelical doctrine. She rebuked the Regensburg council for their 
lukewarmness in the work of reformation, though Cardinal Cam- 
peggio praised them highly for their course. 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 79 

there. Fools along with us it appears are Niirnberg, 
Nordling, Augsburg, Ulm, Reutling, Konstanz, St. Gall, 
Appenzell, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel, Strassb'urg, 
Worms, Speier, Maintz, and almost the whole of the 
land of Saxony. ' ' 1 

For what reason Hiibmaier declined the invita- 
tion from Regensburg we can only conjecture. He 
probably was unwilling to leave the work at Wald- 
shut in this crisis, and if he sought merely his own 
personal safety and comfort, there is nothing to 
show that he would have been more secure in 
preaching evangelical doctrine at Regensburg than 
at Waldshut. The former motive seems, from all 
the evidence we have, to have been controlling. 
The people of his town, the flock for whom he had 
come to have a strong affection, were loyal to him 
under circumstances of great trial; it was not for 
him to desert them. 

The effort to dislodge him from the city increased 
in strength and persistence. On April 13th the 
Austrian Government addressed a letter to the 
council of Waldshut, in which it was said: "It is 
understood that your Doctor and preacher in all his 
sermons holds forth the Lutheran doctrines, praises 



Written April 4th. Quoted by Loserth, p. 41. 



80 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 

and defends them, buys Lutheran books and tracts, 
and brings them home among his people. Hence 
we would advise, with all earnestness, that within 
a month's time you expel the said Doctor and 
preacher from the city, and choose in his place 
another suitable and pious preacher, who does not 
hold Luther's condemned doctrines." ! Not con- 
tent with using the secular power against him, the 
enemies of Hiibmaier also invoked the authority of 
his ecclesiastical superiors. He was accused to the 
Bishop of Constance, who had jurisdiction over the 
city of Waldshut, and this prelate wrote letters of 
remonstrance to the town authorities, rebuking 
them for tolerating the preaching of a Lutheran 
heretic, instead of hearing only one who would 
preach the "holy gospel." These having no effect, 
he summoned the offending preacher to Constance. 
This summons Hiibmaier refused to obey, saying, 
as it is reported, "It was none of his duty to ap- 
pear before that hypocrite. 

As time passed, however, not only was there no 
relenting in the attitude of his opponents, but the 
pressure on Waldshut to abandon him to his fate 



Loserth, p. 42. 



1524] An Evangelical Reformer 81 

became increasingly great, and it was at length evi- 
dent that if the town persisted in upholding him 
the Austrian Government would resort to force to 
maintain its authority. As the one contention of 
that Government up to this time had been that the 
city should dismiss their heretical preacher, Hiib- 
maier was brought to face the question whether he 
should not sacrifice himself for the sake of giving 
peace to the city. His townspeople would defend 
him to the last extremity, that was evident; but 
ought he to bring the horrors of war against Wald- 
shut, when his withdrawal would remove the cause 
of controversy with Austria? We cannot wonder 
that he decided that it would be best for him to 
leave the city, at least for a time, and he evidently 
won the consent of his more influential friends to 
this course. On the 1st of September, 1524/ he 
left the town, three armed knights escorting him 
to the frontier, where some knights from Schaff- 
hausen met him and conducted him to their city. 
These precautions not only indicate that the with- 
drawal was carefully planned, but that his friends 



1 Hoschek says August 16th, but this is an error of computation, as 

Loserth shows, p. 48. 
6 



82 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 

considered Hubmaier to be in serious danger of 
capture en route. 

If he thought to secure his own safety by thus 
retreating to Schaffhausen, he was still ignorant of 
the intensity of Austria's hatred. His choice of 
Schaffhausen as a refuge was plainly enough dic- 
tated by the fact that he had been domiciled there 
before, and had friends in the city. He probably 
counted on them to ensure him protection, and not 
without reason. For though the Austrian Govern- 
ment pursued him even here, and made repeated 
and almost threatening demands for his surrender, 
the council of Schaffhausen firmly refused to give 
him up. While the matter was still pending, Hiib- 
maier addressed three letters to the council, in 
which he besought them to permit him to abide 
peaceably in their town. In the third and most 
elaborate of these letters, after setting forth at 
length reasons why his petition should be heard, he 
goes on : 

"Why have I made so long a preface? Because I am 
called a disturber of the people, a stirrer-up of strife, a 
Lutheran, a heretic, and so forth, and the pious, hon- 
ourable city of Waldshut because of my teaching is slan- 
dered high and low, which truly pains my heart. No 



i S 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 83 

one could ever be more ready and willing than I am to 
give all men an account of my doctrine, as I have 
preached it these two years past. If I have taught only 
truth, why abuse me? If error, any man may set me in 
the right way with the spiritual word. As man I may 
very well err, but will be no heretic. I am conscious 
that in the whole two years past I have not preached a 
single letter that is not grounded in God's word. I 
herewith further pledge myself, where the necessity of 
this my defence presses me, here at Schaffhausen, I 
will before the court give and receive justice. Only one 
should not offer violence, either to me or to the pious 
city of Waldshut. Moreover, I beg you to permit 
neither me nor other Christian teachers to be urged and 
compelled, but hear me in the face of my opponents, 
who accuse me so shamefully. But should this prayer 
of mine find no hearing, which once I would not have 
expected of Turks, and I should be tortured by prison, 
rack, sword, fire, or water, or God otherwise withdraw 
from me his grace, so that I speak otherwise than now, 
then do I herewith protest and testify that I will suffer 
and die as a Christian." 1 

The plea found favour with the council, which 
returned but one answer to the numerous demands 
made for the surrender of this now notorious 
heretic. Nevertheless, it was a position of much 
uncertainty regarding the future in which Hiib- 
maier found himself. Schaffhausen's attitude in 
this matter, though doubtless approved in secret by 

1 Dated September 9th. and quoted by Loserth, p. 51. 



84 Balthasar Hubmaier [i S24 

Ziirich and Basel, and possibly one or two other 
cantons, aroused much indignation among the ma- 
jority of the Swiss cantons, which were still Roman 
Catholic. It was an open question whether Schaff- 
hausen would not be compelled to yield in the end, 
however unwillingly. In the meantime, Hubmaier 
could not be in the least in doubt as to his fate 
should the council finally decide to surrender him 
to his foes. It was while in this condition of peril 
and doubt that he composed one of his most char- 
acteristic tracts, " Concerning Heretics and Those 
who Burn Them." It is the earliest plea that has 
come down to us for complete toleration ; and for 
this reason, as well as for its biographical value, it 
is herewith given in full : 

"i. Heretics are those who wickedly oppose the Holy 
Scriptures, the first of whom was the devil, when he 
said to Eve, 'Ye shall not surely die' (Gen. hi., 4), 
together with his followers. 2. Those also are heretics 
who cast a veil over the Scriptures and interpret them 
otherwise than the Holy Spirit demands; as those who 
everywhere proclaim a concubine as a benefice, pastur- 
ing and ruling the church at Rome, and compelling us 
to believe this talk. 3. Those who are such one should 
overcome with holy knowledge, not angrily but softly, 
although the Holy Scriptures contain wrath. 4. But 
this wrath of the Scriptures is truly a spiritual fire and 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 85 

zeal of love, not burning without the word of God. 
5. If they will not be taught by strong proofs or evan- 
gelic reasons, then let them be, and leave them to rage 
and be mad (Tit. iii., 2, 3), that those who are filthy 
may become more filthy still (Rev. xxii., n). 6. The 
law that condemns heretics to the fire builds up both 
Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness. 7. There- 
fore will they be taken away in sighs, for the judgments 
of God (whose right it is to judge) either convert or 
harden them, that the blind lead the blind and both the 
seduced and the seducer go from bad to worse. 8. This 
is the will of Christ who said, 'Let both grow together 
till the harvest, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root 
up also the wheat with them' (Matt, xiii., 29). 'For 
there must be also heresies among you, that they that 
are approved may be made manifest among you' (1 
Cor. xi., 19). 9. Though they indeed experience this, 
yet they are not put away until Christ shall say to the 
reapers, 'Gather first the tares and bind them in 
bundles to burn them* (Matt, xiii., 30). 10. This 
word does not teach us idleness but a strife; for we 
should unceasingly contend, not with men but with 
their godless doctrine. n. The unwatchful bishops 
are the cause of the heresies. 'When men slept, the 
enemy came' (Matt, xiii., 25). 12. Again, 'Blessed 
is the man who is a watcher at the door of the bride- 
groom's chamber' (Prov. viii.), 1 and neither sleeps nor 



1 Hiibmaier's quotations of Scripture are usually very accurate, 
and his references can almost always be easily identified, though, as 
the verse divisions had not then been made, he refers only to chap- 
ters. But there is nothing in Prov. viii. in the least corresponding to 
the above words. Had they not been given as a verbatim quotation, 
they might have been received as an allusion to some text like Matt. 



86 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 

'sits in the seat of the scornful' (Ps. i., i). 13. Hence 
it follows that the inquisitors are the greatest heretics of 
all, since, against the doctrine and example of Christ, 
they condemn heretics to fire, and before the time of 
harvest root up the wheat with the tares. 14. For 
Christ did not come to butcher, destroy and burn, but 
that those that live might live more abundantly 
(John x., 10). 15. We should pray and hope for re- 
pentance, as long as man lives in this misery. 16. A 
Turk or a heretic is not convinced by our act, either 
with the sword or with fire, but only with patience and 
prayer; and so we should await with patience the judg- 
ment of God. 17. If we do otherwise, God will treat 
our sword as stubble, and burning fire as mockery 
(Job. xli.). 18. So unholy and far off from evangelical 
doctrine is the whole order of preaching friars (of 
which variegated birds our Antony is one), that hitherto 
out of them alone the inquisitors have come. 19. If 
these only knew of what spirit they ought to be, they 
would not so shamelessly pervert God's word, nor so 
often cry, 'To the fire, to the fire! ' (Luke ix., 54- 
56). 20. It is no excuse (as they chatter) that they give 
over the wicked to the secular power, for he who thus 
gives over sins more deeply (John xix., n). 21. For 
each Christian has a sword against the wicked, which is 
the word of God (Eph. vi., 17), but not a sword against 
the malignant. 22. The secular power rightly and 
properly puts to death the criminals who injure the 
bodies of the defenceless (Rom. xiii., 3, 4). But he 
who is God's cannot injure any one, unless he first 
deserts the gospel. 23. Christ has shown us this clearly, 

ix., 15, or John iii., 29. As it is, they are an insoluble puzzle. 
The reference to Job, under Article 34, is also puzzling. 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 87 

saying, 'Fear not them that kill the body' (Matt, x., 
28). 24. The [secular] power judges criminals, but not 
the godless who cannot injure either body or soul, but 
rather are a benefit ; therefore God can in wisdom draw 
good from evil. 25. Faith which flows from the gospel 
fountain, lives only in contests, and the rougher they 
become, so much the greater becomes faith. 26. That 
every one has not been taught the gospel truth, is due 
to the bishops no less than to the common people — these 
that they have not cared for a better shepherd, the 
former that they have not performed their office pro- 
perly. 27. If the blind lead the blind, according to the 
just judgment of God, they both fall together into the 
ditch (Matt, xv., 14). 28. Hence to burn heretics is in 
appearance to profess Christ (Tit. i., 10, 11), but in 
reality to deny him, and to be more monstrous than 
Jehoiakim, the king of Judah (Jer. xxxvi., 23). 29. If 
it is blasphemy to destroy a heretic, how much more is 
it to burn to ashes a faithful herald of the word of God, 
unconvicted, not arraigned by the truth. 30. The 
greatest deception of the people is a zeal for God that 
is unscripturally expended, the salvation of the soul, 
honour of the church, love of truth, good intention, use 
or custom, episcopal decrees, and the teaching of the 
reason that come by the natural light. For they are 
deadly arrows where they are not led and directed by 
the Scriptures. 31. We should not presume, led away 
by the deception of our own purpose, to do better or 
more securely than God has spoken by his own mouth. 
32. Those who rely on their good intention and think 
to do better, are like Uzziah and Peter. The latter 
was called Satan by Christ (Matt, xvi., 23), but the 
former came to a wretched end (1 Chron. xiii., 10). 



88 Balthasar Hubmaier [1524 

33. Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah acted wisely in 
withstanding Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, when he 
cast the book of Jehovah into the fire (Jer., xxxvi., 25). 

34. But in that, after one book was burnt, Baruch by 
the express direction of Jeremiah, wrote another much 
better (Jer. xxxvi., 27-32), we see the just punishment 
of God on the unrighteous burning. For so it shall be 
that on those who fear the frost, a cold snow falls 
(Job. vi., 16?). 35. But we do not hold that it was un- 
christian to burn their numerous books of incantations, 
as the fact in the Acts of the Apostles shows (Acts xix., 
19). It is a small thing to burn innocent paper, but to 
point out an error and to disprove it by Scripture, that 
is art. 36. Now it is clear to every one, even the blind, 
that a law to burn heretics is an invention of the devil. 
'Truth is immortal/ " 

The world was not ready for this doctrine in the 
year of our Lord 1524; indeed, now that a large 
part of the world has come to profess this same 
faith, those who really believe it are a lamentably 
small remnant. The old zeal for persecuting still 
survives, and often breaks out in utterly uncon- 
scious manifestations in the midst of every religious 
body. We do not really believe that the ark of 
God is safe unless our hand occasionally steadies 
it. We have no real confidence at bottom in the 
ability of the truth to conquer error in a fair field, 
and are impelled from time to time to lend our in- 



1524] An Evangelical Reformer 89 

valuable aid — always, of course, on the side of right 
and truth and justice. 

Another fruit of the stay at Schaffhausen was due 
to a controversy that had broken out between his 
old teacher and friend, John Eck, and his new 
friends, the Swiss reformers, especially Zwingli. 
Thirsting for the fray, Hiibmaier prepared a series 
of theses which were printed in Zurich the following 
November, in both German and Latin, the latter 
edition having the title: "Fundamental articles, 
which Baldazar, the fly of Fridberg, brother in 
Christ of Huldrych Zwingli, has proposed to John 
Eck, the elephant of Ingolstadt, for masterly exam- 
ination." These articles are of special interest, as 
showing the relations that obtained at this time 
between the author and the Zurich leader : 

"1. Every Christian must give to him who demands it 
an account of his hope and also of his faith. 

"2. For only him who fearlessly confesses Christ be- 
fore men will he also confess before his Father. 

" 3. With the heart one believes unto righteousness, 
but with the mouth he makes confession unto salvation. 

" 4. When you have not faith, how can you under- 
stand this: ' I have believed, therefore have I spoken'? 
How will you believe him whom you have not heard ? 

"5. The decision, which of two holds the right 



90 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 

opinion, belongs to the church, which is conceived in 
the word of God and born in faith. 

" 6. For the sake of order and to avert strife, three 
or four men may be chosen by the church, as once 
Peter and Paul, Barnabas and James. 

" 7. The apostles of Christ held councils, not to 
settle the doctrine of faith, but to maintain unity among 
the brethren. 

" 8. Their decision appears according to the 'level' 
of the Scripture. 

"9. It searches, therefore, the divine Scripture, not 
papal dogmas nor councils, nor Fathers, nor schools, 
for the word of Christ will judge all things. 

" 10. Those only should be judges who are taught 
and inspired by God. 

"11. They are such when they put away worldly 
passion and search the Bible. 

"12. That is, they are not to contend with unspirit- 
ual verbosity, even to hoarseness, but to explain the 
dark places of the Scripture by the clear. 

"13. Those who do that are blessed. 

" 14. And to them one should hearken. 

"15. Their judgment will be sanctioned by the 
silence of the multitude. 

" 16. The church should be heard in things relating 
to strife and brotherly love ; but in disagreement regard- 
ing the faith the Scripture is the only standard. 

"17. It may well be that all men should especially 
teach, so that every one may learn and all receive 
comfort. 

"18. Therefore has God given to the prophet the 
spirit of truth-speaking, and he is a teacher not of 
strife but of peace. 



iS24] An Evangelical Reformer 91 

"19. He guards them also against false prophets; 
they mislead with flattering words the hearts of the in- 
nocent, after they receive from the Pope twelve times 
a hundred ducats. 

11 20. Beware of them, they are sons of hell. 

"21. In this conflict, every one must teach equipped 
with the armour of the Holy Spirit. 

"22. And the women must be silent and learn at 
home of their husbands. 

" 23. But if the men through fear have turned to 
women, then must these do men's deeds, like Deborah, 
and Argula of our own time. 

" 24. The judges should therefore be true theologians, 
not 'invested and provided with cowls,' but such as 
wear, according to the divine injunction, the ' breast- 
plate ' of Aaron. 

"25. The learned therefore are to hear; the learned 
are they who daily read the book of the law, and have 
Moses and the prophets. 

" 26. They who do not read this book ought not to 
be judges. 

11 Where now is this wise man, this Biblical scholar? 
Where is the disputer of this world? Is it Eck? Let 
him come to us, that renowned Hercules, from Ingol- 
stadt. If I do not deceive myself, he will be taken 
with a 'herculean' sickness, he will suffer danger in the 
'fray of the faith.' If he comes, we will praise him." 

To this challenge, of course, Eck paid not the 
slightest attention — indeed, there is nothing to 
show that he ever saw it. The value of the docu- 
ment consists solely in the light that it throws on 



9 2 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 

Hubmaier's opinions and connections. It has not 
always been correctly interpreted ; it is reading the 
author's subsequent history into the articles to see 
in them doctrine "entirely in the direction of the 
Anabaptists." ' The principle that the Scripture is 
to be the arbiter of all questions, the sole rule of faith 
and practice, did, indeed, become later the funda- 
mental contention of the Anabaptist party ; but it 
was at this time also the fundamental avowal of the 
Swiss reformers, and had been such from the first. 
It was upon this basis that the first Zurich disputa- 
tion was conducted, and in all their writings Zwingli 
and QEcolampadius had been setting it forth as the 
corner-stone of their reformation. Luther, too, up 
to this time had been advocating the same principle 
with all the vigour of his voice and pen. It had 
not yet been shown that the reformers would be 
unwilling to follow this principle to all lengths. It 
was their ultimate refusal to do this, their partial 
surrender again to the tradition they had so vigor- 
ously repudiated, that led to the division of the 
reforming party and developed the minority radical 
group, to whom the name "Anabaptist" was gener- 



Hoschek, i., 146. 




THE MUNSTER, OR CHIEF CHURCH OF SCHAFFHAUSEN. 



1524] An Evangelical Reformer 93 

ally given. There is nothing in the above theses, 
fairly interpreted in the light of contemporary 
events, that foreshadows any serious difference of 
opinion between Hiibmaier and Zwingli. 

The next that we learn of Hiibmaier is his sudden 
return to Waldshut on the 29th of October. 1 He 
had probably become more than ever doubtful of 
his continuance in safety at Schaffhausen, but it 
had also become perfectly evident that his leaving 
Waldshut had accomplished nothing. So far from 
bringing peace to the city, his going away had 
apparently increased its trouble with the Austrian 
Government. At first the demand had been only 
that the heretic preacher should be expelled, but, 
after he had voluntarily withdrawn, other conces- 
sions were demanded. The negotiations were long 

1 A contemporary chronicle quoted by Loserth (p. 70) says that he 
was received with extravagant manifestations of joy, being greeted 
with drums, pipes, and horns, "just as if he were an Emperor." 
The council, according to Faber, looked with little sympathy on this 
demonstration, but the people welcomed him. The reception ended 
with a feast in the market-house, in which the Swiss contingent par- 
ticipated. Further alterations in public worship were now made. 
Hiibmaier himself reassumed his office of chief pastor and preacher, 
and his salary was fixed at two hundred gulden (Egli, Actensamm- 
lung, No. 911). He did not hesitate, also, to take his part, like any 
other citizen, in the defence of the town, and bespoke armour, an 
arquebus, and a broadsword, that he might keep his watch at the 
gate. 



94 Balthasar Hlibmaier [ I524 

and tiresome, and it would be profitless for our 
purposes to go into their details. It is enough to 
say that the people of Waldshut speedily learned 
from Austria that before they would be left in peace 
they must return fully to the Catholic religion and 
submit to whatever other exactions that Govern- 
ment chose to impose. The truth is, that the city 
was in a condition of political as well as religious 
unrest and revolt; of this Austria was fully con- 
scious, and was determined to reduce the town 
to submission. On the other hand, the citizens 
desired such liberties and immunities as the neigh- 
bouring Swiss towns possessed, such as were en- 
joyed by the free cities of the Empire, and they 
would be satisfied with nothing less. But as Aus- 
tria was determined to grant nothing of the kind, it 
is evident that here were all the conditions of an 
irrepressible conflict, the issue of which could only 
be decided finally by the sword. 

The strife seemed an unequal one — on the one 
side all the power of Austria, on the other, this 
small town. But Waldshut knew that she did not 
stand alone. The fact that she had entered on a 
reformation similar in spirit and method to that of 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 95 

Zurich gained for her the warm sympathy of that 
town, as well as of several other Swiss cities. For 
prudential reasons, this sympathy might not take 
the form of openly aiding a rebellion against Aus- 
tria, but secret aid was doubtless promised and was 
certainly given. On several occasions when Austria 
menaced Waldshut with an armed force, men from 
Zurich came to her aid and caused the invaders to 
retire. 

But there was a special reason just now for Aus- 
trian forbearance towards Waldshut, and for the 
triumphant return of the favourite preacher thither. 
Hans Muller and his band of insurgent peasants 
were in the immediate vicinity of the town, and had 
more or less fraternised with the citizens, and the 
Austrian Government was trembling at the possible 
consequence of this uprising. Archduke Ferdi- 
nand, with his usual treachery, was instructing his 
officers and governors to temporise with the peas- 
ants until he could collect a sufficient military force 
to crush them ; in the meantime, it was evident 
that he could do nothing against Waldshut. 

It is not easy to determine exactly what were the 
relations between Hubmaier and this movement. 



96 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1524 

His enemies busied themselves afterwards in making 
all sorts of charges against him, some of which are 
contrary to documentary evidence and others ab- 
surd in themselves. He confessed under torture at 
Vienna in 1528 that he had revised and commented 
on the peasants' articles, which were sent him from 
the camp for the purpose. The statement would 
imply a certain amount of sympathy with the gen- 
eral purposes of the uprising, and would at the same 
time restrict his actual connection with it to very 
narrow limits. It is now tolerably certain that 
those who credited him with the original composi- 
tion of the articles were astray. 1 All that we know 
of Hiibmaier's life, and the general tenor of his 
writings, alike point to the conclusion that he was, 
first of all, a preacher of the gospel, and that his 
interest in political and social reforms was slight in 
comparison with his zeal to teach men the true re- 
ligion of Christ, as he understood it. To him the 
gospel was the one remedy for all the ills of man. 
It would not only save men from God's wrath and 
condemnation, but save them from sin. It would 

1 See Bax, The Peasants' War in Germany, p. 75 sa., London, 
1889. For the opposite view, Stern, Ueber die zwolf Artikel der 
Bauern, esp. p. 89 sa. 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 97 

not merely fit men for heaven, but for their life 
upon earth. Consequently, while he no doubt be- 
lieved the cause of the peasants to be just, and 
wished them well, and even gave them his more or 
less open approval, he was not the man to become 
their leader, like Mtinzer, to whom the gospel came 
to mean social reform far more than individual 
regeneration. 

How does this attitude of Waldshut and of Hub- 
maier agree with his later assertions that the only 
grievance of Austria against the town and him was 
on account of the gospel? 

" With us neither tax nor tithes has ever been spoken 
against with the least word, but it has been sought to 
force us from the word of God by violence and against 
all right. That has been our only complaint. Here I 
defy all men on earth and all devils in hell, that there 
was no other occasion against Waldshut but alone, 
alone, alone the word of God. God grant that they 
may acknowledge it, and illumine those who denied us 
before the prince [Ferdinand]. As I now speak I could 
prove to the prince when he was at Breisach in Breis- 
gau. Those in Waldshut proffered this orally and in 
writing to the prince. Also to other princes and lords 
who were there personally, and especially to the Christ- 
ian town of Constance, in which the last diet was held, 
those from Waldshut publicly promised that they would 
to the prince and all others do all things as they were 



98 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 

done before, as their forefathers have done; and much 
more, they offered to pour out their body, life, honour, 
goods, and blood for the sake of the honourable house 
of Austria; and if there were a stone at Waldshut ten 
fathoms deep under the earth which was not good 
Austrian, they would scratch it out with their nails and 
cast it into the Rhine. They have always been the 
first to pay to the prince their obedience and tribute, 
but have ever asked with weeping eyes for God's sake 
that they be allowed the simple, pure, clean word of 
God. 

" The councillors of the prince gave this answer at 
Constance: 'It shall not be done at all. If that were 
allowed them, it would be the same as if one fire were 
put out and others lighted. Other cities afterwards 
would desire the same.' I know all those who gave 
this answer, but I will not now indicate them. The 
messengers of the cities of Zurich, Basel, and Schaff- 
hausen were present at this answer." 1 

This was, no doubt, the manner in which the 
question always presented itself to the mind of 
Hiibmaier; to him the great question, the sole 
question, was the preaching of a pure gospel. But 
there is considerable evidence at hand, which need 
not be given here in detail, to show that this was 
not the matter uppermost in the minds of Waldshut 
citizens generally, nor does this statement of the 
matter agree with the idea that the Austrian Govern- 

1 A Short Apology of Dr. Balthasar Huebmor of Fridberg, Op. 13. 




PORTRAIT OF CECOLAMPADIUS. 

FROM AN OLD WOODCUT. 



i 5 2 4 ] An Evangelical Reformer 99 

ment had of the things at issue. Religious reform 
was, indeed, one thing that Austria understood to 
be demanded by Waldshut, and which she was 
resolute in refusing to concede; but she had other 
grievances against the city, that might be summed 
up in the one word, "contumacy." 

Thus affairs remained for months with little 
change : Austria threatening and occasionally mak- 
ing demonstrations of attack ; Waldshut stubbornly 
resisting, and relying not in vain on her secret allies 
for continuous moral support and occasional active 
though unofficial assistance. The relations between 
Hubmaier and the Swiss reformers during this 
period were close and warm. He was known not 
to believe in the Scripturalness of infant baptism, 
but the reformers themselves were at this time by 
no means strenuous in maintaining this point, and 
such difference of opinion as there might have been 
did not interrupt their friendly intercourse. In 
one of his pamphlets, as we have seen, Hubmaier 
describes himself as "brother of Huldrych Zwingli," 
and Zwingli, GEcolampadius and the other Swiss 
leaders had only words of sympathy and praise for 
him. But all this was speedily to change. 



CHAPTER IV 

HUBMAIER BECOMES AN ANABAPTIST 
I 524-I 526 

'THE closing weeks of 1524 saw Zwingli in great 
* perplexity, and the people of Zurich divided 
in sentiment. The reformation in that city was 
begun by the systematic exposition of the Script- 
ures, and from the first the principle was avowed 
that nothing was to be preached or practised which 
was not clearly taught in the word of God. It was 
inevitable that differences of judgment should arise 
over the practical application of this principle to 
the work of actual reform ; and even when there 
was virtual agreement as to what should be done, 
there would still be room for disagreement as to the 
time and method of doing it. Every man is by 
temperament and training a radical or a conserva- 
tive, and a party on the whole agreed in policy has 
always its Left and its Right wing. Zwingli had 

the experience common to all leaders : whatever he 

100 



1524-1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 101 

did or left undone, some were certain to accuse 
him of going too fast, while others would assert 
that he was going far too slow; to one he would 
seem to be destroying the very foundations of the 
faith, while another would complain of him as only 
a half-hearted reformer after all. 

A radical wing or group gradually developed in 
the party of reform, and by the beginning of the 
year 1525 they were demanding with much insist- 
ence that Zwingli should adhere with more consist- 
ency to his avowed principle of conformity to the 
Scriptures, and should move more quickly in the 
direction of a complete reform of the Church. 
They demanded that he should "separate himself 
from the godless, and gather a pure church, a con- 
gregation of the church of God." 1 The only 
church of which they could find mention in the 
New Testament was a congregation of true believ- 
ers in Christ, and it seemed plain to them that 
conformity to the Scriptures required that the 
church of Zurich should be reorganised on that 
basis. They had also discovered not only that the 



1 Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, i., 224. Cf. Zwingli, Op., II., 
i., 372; Egli, Wiedertaufer, p. 10^. 



102 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

baptism of infants is nowhere commanded ifr the 
New Testament, but that there is no clear case re- 
corded there of the baptism of any but a believer 
on his personal profession of faith. The intimate 
connection of these things, and the bearings of 
them on their own conduct had not yet been appre- 
hended by this radical group, but they were already 
quite clear as to what the Scriptures did and did 
not teach. 

There was thus raised the weightiest question 
that arose for solution during the entire Reforma- 
tion period — a question that goes deeper than any 
other, and has more momentous consequences than 
any other, according as one answer or the contrary 
is given. It was this question that became funda- 
mental with this party, and held that position 
throughout the history of the Anabaptists. 1 Ana- 
baptism was but a necessary corollary from the an- 
swer given to the question, What, according to 
the Scriptures, is a church of Christ, and of whom 
should it be composed? The radicals could find 



1 The name "Anabaptist" is not applied to the radical party here 
or elsewhere before they actually adopted the practice of rebaptism. 
It is believed that considerable confusion is avoided by maintaining 
carefully this distinction. 



i 5 26] Becomes an Anabaptist 103 

but one answer : A church of Christ is a congrega- 
tion of true believers, giving token that they have 
been born again of the Spirit of God by living 
in accordance with the precepts of their Lord. A 
church composed of the regenerate only was the 
ideal of this party, and they pressed upon Zwingli 
the adoption of this as his programme. 

To Zwingli this seemed an impracticable ideal. 
His was an eminently practical mind, and he saw 
clearly what was likely to be successful and what 
would almost certainly fail. He had begun his 
work with the approval and support of the town 
council of Zurich ; he reckoned the continuance 
of support by the council to be an absolute neces- 
sity to him, if he was to succeed ; and he was cer- 
tain that he could not carry the council with him 
in any such programme as that urged by the radi- 
cals. It is not necessary for any who, on the whole, 
agree with the radicals that to tie right is even 
more important than to succeed, to question the 
sincerity of Zwingli in the course that he took. 
Though a zealous reformer and an ardent patriot, — 
or perhaps one should rather say, because he was 
both these, — he was not a radical ; no policy of 



104 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i S24 - 

" Thorough" could under any circumstances have 
had his entire approval. And he was able to argue 
from the Scriptures against the radical position 
with an exegesis that was ingenious if not correct. 
He insisted that the tares should be allowed to 
grow together with the wheat, that the strong 
ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and the 
like. 

The question of infant baptism seemed to Zwingli 
at first open to doubt. He avows that for a time 
his mind was not at rest on this question, 1 and the 
like was true of his friend CEcolampadius. But 
when they saw later the practical bearings of the 

1 " For the error also misled me for several years, so that I thought 
it would be much better to baptise children first when they had come 
to a good age." Vom Touff, vom Wider touff, und vom Kinder ton ff, 
Zwingli, Op. II., i., 245. "Although I know, as the Fathers show, 
that infants have been baptised occasionally from the earliest times, 
still it was not so universal a custom as it is now, but the common 
practice was, as soon as they arrived at the age of reason, to form 
them into classes for instruction in the word of salvation (hence they 
were called catechumens, i. e., persons under instruction). And 
after a firm faith had been implanted in their hearts and they had 
confessed the same with their .nouth, then they were baptised. I 
could wish that this custom of giving instruction were revived to-day, 
viz., since the children are baptised so young, their religious instruc- 
tion might begin as soon as they come to sufficient understanding. 
Otherwise they suffer a great and ruinous disadvantage, if they are 
not as well religiously instructed after baptism as the children of 
the ancients were before baptism, as sermons to them still preserved 
show." — Quoted by Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, p. 243. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 105 

question, they convinced themselves without much 
trouble of the Scripturalness of the practice, and 
thereafter remained its firm advocates. This ac- 
counts for their friendly attitude towards Hiibmaier 
and others when this question first began to be dis- 
puted, and it also accounts for other things to be 
related soon. It is absurd to attribute the rise of 
this question in Zurich to the agency of Thomas 
Miinzer. Those who have conjectured, on the 
weak authority of Bullinger, 1 that he instructed 
Grebel and others in this matter, would hardly 
be prepared to admit that Miinzer inspired the 
doubts which at the same time disturbed Zwingli 
and CEcolampadius. It is not necessary to have re- 
course to any outside agency to explain this very 
simple matter. The Zurich people were study- 
ing the Scriptures attentively to learn what they 

1 Weak because of Bullinger's strong prejudice against Anabaptists 
and his readiness to record anything to their discredit. Reforma- 
tionsgeschichte, i., 224, 237 ; followed by Egli, Widertaufer , p. 19 ; 
Loserth, Hiibmaier, p. 73, and others. On the other hand, the cir- 
cumstantial narrative of Kessler is quite inconsistent with this the- 
ory. Sabbata, i., 265 sq. Hiibmaier opposed the baptism of infants 
as early as May, 1523, and the earliest time that can with probability 
be assigned for his meeting with Miinzer is after September, 1524, 
as we know from a letter of Miinzer's to CEcolampadius. — Siede- 
mann, Thomas Miinzer, p. 136 sq. ; cf. Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, 
p. 243, n. 



106 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

taught, and no long study is needed to disclose the 
fact that infant baptism certainly does not lie on 
the surface of the New Testament writings. 

Those who hold that the Swiss Anabaptists had 
derived their views from Munzer cannot have read 
attentively the letter written by Grebel, Mantz, 
and others, September 5, 1524, in which they re- 
quest from him a statement of his ideas regarding 
baptism ; and, after expounding their own doctrine 
at some length, go on to say : 

"We believe . . . that all children, who have not 
yet come to know the difference between good and evil 
. . . are saved by the sufferings of Christ, the new 
Adam. . . . Also that infant baptism is a silly, 
blasphemous outrage, contrary to all Scripture. . . 
Since . . . you have published your protestations 
against infant baptism, 1 we hope you do not act against 
the eternal word, wisdom, and command of God, ac- 
cording to which only believers should be baptised, 
and that you baptise no children." 3 

This is hardly the language of disciples to a master, 
and the whole letter is similar in tone. In a word, 

1 On the practice of Munzer regarding the baptism of infants, see 
his statement to CEcolampadius in Herzog's biography, i., 302. It 
did not differ much from that of Hiibmaier before Roublin's visit 
and the definite adoption of Anabaptism — a point to which MUnzer 
never came. 

2 Cornelius, Gesck. des Miinsterischen Aufrukrs, ii., 240^. 



i 5 26] Becomes an Anabaptist 107 

the writers roundly rebuke Miinzer for his errors, 
especially singling out his teaching about the sword 
for reprobation. Grebel and the others had evi- 
dently learned that the teaching and practice of 
Miinzer did not in all respects agree, and so far 
from looking up to him as one from whom they 
had learned something valuable, they take him to 
task as an erring brother. 

This theory would probably never have been 
broached but for the fact that the name of Thomas 
Miinzer was loaded with obloquy, on account of 
his doings in Muhlhausen during the rebellion of 
the peasants, and therefore to establish any sort 
of connection between him and the Anabaptists is 
to discredit the latter — which is a thing that many 
writers, from Bullinger to our own day, have busily 
attempted to do. It should also be borne in mind 
that Miinzer was not himself an Anabaptist, though 
often incorrectly called by that name. Though he 
asserts in one of his tracts that infant baptism can- 
not be proved from Scripture, he never abandoned 
the practice, and his teaching on this subject was 
purely academic, and filled no large place in his 
horizon. 



io8 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 - 

By this time Hiibmaier had become thoroughly- 
convinced, not only that the baptism of infants is 
contrary to Scripture, but that he ought to combat 
the practice. This we learn from a letter that he 
wrote to CEcolampadius, under date of January 16, 
1525: 

" For we have publicly taught that children should 
not be baptised. Why do we baptise children? Bapt- 
ism, say they [Zwingli and Leo], is a mere sign. Why 
do we strive so much over a sign? The meaning of this 
sign and symbol, the pledge of faith until death, in hope 
of the resurrection to the life to come, is to be con- 
sidered more than a sign. This meaning has nothing 
to do with babes, therefore infant baptism is without 
reality. In baptism one pledges himself to God, in the 
Supper to his neighbour, to offer body and blood in his 
stead, as Christ for us. I believe, yea, I know, that it 
will not go well with Christendom until Baptism and the 
Supper are brought back to their own original purity. 
Here, brother, you have my opinion; if I err, call me 
back. For I wish nothing so much that I will not re- 
voke it, yea, cut it off, when I am taught better from 
the word of God by you and yours. Otherwise I 
abide by my opinion, for to that I am constrained by the 
command of Christ, the word, faith, truth, judgment, 
conscience. Testify to the truth, you can in no way 
offend me. I am a man and can fall, since that is 
human, but from my heart I desire to rise again. Write 
we whether the promise in Matt, xix., 14, 'Let the little 
children come to me,' etc., especially belongs to infants. 
What prompts me to that is the word of Christ, 'for of 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 109 

such is the kingdom of heaven,' not 'of them.' I have 
sent letters to Zwingli by the captain of our volunteers. 
Instead of baptism, I have the church come together, 
bring the infant in, explain in German the gospel, 'They 
brought little children'; then a name is given him, the 
whole church prays for the child with bended knees, and 
commends him to Christ, that He will be gracious and 
intercede for him. But if the parents are still weak, 
and positively wish that the child be baptised, then I bap- 
tise it; and I am weak with the weak for the time being 
until they can be better instructed. As to the word, 
however, I do not yield to them in the least point. I 
have written twenty-two theses with sixty-four remarks, 
which you will soon see." 1 

The last sentence seems to imply a purpose of 
publication, but, so far as is known, it was not ful- 
filled. On February 2nd, however, he did issue a 
leaflet entitled The Open Appeal of Balthazar of 
Friedberg to All Christian Believers, which shows 
the increasing firmness of his tone regarding the 
baptism of infants : 

"Whosoever wills, let him show that one ought to bap- 
tise young children, and let him do this in German, with 
plain, clear, simple Scriptures, relating to baptism, with- 
out addition. 

"Balthazar of Friedberg pledges himself, on the other 
hand, to prove that the baptism of infants is a work 
without any ground in the divine word, and that he will 



1 Zwingli, Op. II., i., 338. 



no Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

do this in German with plain, clear, simple Scriptures 
relating to baptism, without any addition. 

"Now let a Bible fifty or a hundred years old be opened, 
as the right, orderly, and truthful judge between these 
two propositions; let it be read with prayerful, humble 
spirit, and then this disagreement will be decided ac- 
cording to the word of God, and finally settled. Then 
shall I be well content, for I shall always give God the 
glory, and permit his word to be the sole arbiter — to 
him will I surrender, to him have I devoted myself and 
my teaching. The truth is immortal. ' ' * 

From this time Hubmaier becomes the champion 
of the radicals, and it is this championship that 
brings him into speedy conflict with the Swiss re- 
formers. They could have forgiven him his opin- 
ions regarding infant baptism, especially as he did 
not for a time insist on making his practice perfectly 
correspond with his theory. What they could not 
so easily forgive was the aid and comfort that he 
continually gave to their most troublesome op- 
ponents. Zwingli felt that his position was hard 
enough in Zurich without the interference of such 
men as the Waldshut preacher to encourage his 
opponents and make his task still harder. He 
would have been a remarkable man if he could 
have retained a friendly feeling for one who was 

1 Loserth, p. 76. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist in 

thus giving him a great deal of trouble. Hiibmaier 
did not intervene in person for a time, but through 
the press he made himself felt continually. Many 
of the Zurich radicals were men of learning and 
ability ; some of them were possibly the superiors 
of Hiibmaier in scholarship; but he had pre- 
eminently the gift of expression. We owe to his 
writings the better part of our knowledge concern- 
ing the teachings and motives of these men who for 
a few years played so active a part in the Reforma- 
tion, and then succumbed to the relentless measures 
of persecution, only to be misunderstood and vili- 
fied for generations afterward. 

It was through William Roublin, of Wytiken, 
that Hubmaier's practice was at length brought 
into harmony with his theory. 1 Driven out of 
Zurich, Roublin made his way early in April, 1525, 
to Waldshut, where he was kindly received. He 
at once proceeded to expound the principles and 
practice of Anabaptism to Hiibmaier, and found 
in him a ready hearer and a speedy convert. Of 
the principles the Waldshut pastor was already 



1 This we know from Hiibmaier himself. Egli, Actensammlung x 
P. 431. 



ii2 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

convinced ; the practice seemed to him both logical 
and Scriptural. Such was his hold upon the people 
of Waldshut that a large part of them were at once 
ready to follow him. Roublin baptised Hubmaier 
and about sixty others, and on Easter day Hiib- 
maier baptised over three hundred men out of a 
milk-pail filled with water from the well, brought 
into the church and placed on the font, which soon 
after was thrown into the Rhine as a papal relic. On 
Easter Monday the Lord's Supper was celebrated. 

The movement towards Anabaptism did not stop 
with this extraordinary beginning, but went on 
with little-diminished rapidity. On Monday and 
Tuesday after Easter Hubmaier baptised from 
seventy to eighty others, and, on Tuesday, "gave 
them the bread of heaven and washed their feet." 
From this and certain other like references in con- 
temporary chronicles, it should seem that the prac- 
tice of feet-washing in connection with the Supper 
had been previously introduced at Waldshut, and 
was still retained. In the attempt to reproduce the 
exact order of the New Testament churches, there 
were certain to be some extravagances, resulting 
from a hasty and unwise literalism. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 113 

At about this time Conrad Grebel, one of the 
chief men of the Anabaptist movement in Switzer- 
land, paid a brief visit to Waldshut, but it does 
not appear that there was any marked result. The 
visit is of significance mainly as showing that Hiib- 
maier was now recognised as one of the Anabaptist 
leaders. Not only did he receive this recognition 
within the body, but from outside this was hence- 
forth the place of honour or dishonour awarded 
him. On May 28th appeared Zwingli's tract On 
Baptism, Anabaptism, and Infant Baptism, 1 and 
though Htibmaier is not definitely named in it as 
the adversary against whom it is chiefly aimed, it 
is plainly his position and his arguments that the 
Swiss reformer has in mind throughout. 

The contents of this tract are summarised by 
Zwingli himself in three theses: (1) No element or out- 
ward thing in this world can cleanse the soul; the 
cleansing of the soul pertains only to the grace of God. 
Thence it follows that baptism can remit no sins. 
Since it cannot do this, and nevertheless has been ap- 
pointed by God, it must be a sign of allegiance of God's 
people and nothing else. (2) Christian children are not 
less God's children than their parents, just as in the 



1 Zwingli, Op. II., i., 230-303, No translation of this work into 
English has yet been published. 



ii4 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

Old Testament. But if they are God's children, who 
shall forbid their baptism? Circumcision in the old 
covenant was the sign that baptism is to us. As that 
was given to children, so should baptism also be given 
to children. (3) Anabaptism has neither teaching, ex- 
ample, nor witness from God's word. They who rebaptise 
crucify Christ afresh, either from selfishness or seeking 
after novelty. 

Hubmaier was not the man to let such an oppor- 
tunity for debate pass unimproved, and he accord- 
ingly prepared an answer under the title of The 
Christian Baptism of Believers, which he seems to 
have finished July nth. 1 

This work consists of an introduction and seven 
chapters. In the introduction the author sets forth his 
purpose to defend himself and his followers from the 
imputation that they are schismatics and subverters of 
government. He is not an Anabaptist, because he was 
never before baptised — infant baptism is no baptism at 
all. As to government, he believes that it should bear 
the sword, and he will obey it in all that is not against 
God. 

In the first chapter he treats of many kinds of bap- 



1 Hoschek is clearly wrong in making June 6th the date of publi- 
cation for this book, for Hubmaier himself announces its coming 
appearance in a letter to the Zurich council, dated June 10th, in 
which he begs that Zwingli will consent to debate the question with 
him. " If I err," he says, " I will gladly retract. If master Ulrich 
errs, he should not be ashamed to forsake his error, for the truth will 
ultimately conquer him." 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 115 

tism, and concludes that Christian baptism, in the name 
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is an open confession 
and testimony of inward faith and obedience, in which 
a man testifies that he is a sinful man and believes that 
Christ through his death has removed his sins. The 
next two chapters discuss the baptism of John, and con- 
tend against Zwingli's idea that it is the same as Christ- 
ian baptism. If this were so, Hiibmaier argues, infant 
baptism would be excluded, for all accounts agree that 
the order of John was: hearing of the word, repentance 
or conviction of sin, baptism, works. John baptised 
only those to whom he had first preached, who had 
therefore believed, confessed their sins, and promised 
amendment of life. Those who received the baptism of 
John were rebaptised by the apostle, and that is the true 
Anabaptism. Infant baptism, hitherto reckoned the true 
baptism, is no baptism, and it is a groundless complaint 
against us that we practice rebaptism. Baptism as 
practiced by the apostles was the remission of sins. 
Those who think children should be baptised as future 
believers make a mock of Christ's command, to teach 
all peoples and to baptise them then, not before. No 
one can tell what a child's will may be later; to baptise 
a child as a future believer is like hanging out a hoop as 
a sign of future wine. But now, says Hiibmaier, they 
take a fresh hold and call infant baptism "a sign of 
beginning." Beginning of what? Of faith? that can- 
not be, for they have not heard the word, from which 
alone faith comes. Of a new life? That cannot well 
be, for the child knows not right from wrong. Let us 
say, then, it is a ceremony, as if the child had been 
received into an order. But as the monk's gown alone 
does not make the monk, so infant baptism makes 



n6 Balthasar Hiibmaier [ I524 - 

nobody a Christian. If they say children are baptised on 
the faith of their parents or godfathers, no such baptism 
is found in the Bible. Christ says, he who himself be- 
lieves and is baptised. 

The fifth chapter treats of the baptism of Christ. In 
his teachings the true order is found to be: the word, 
hearing, faith, baptism, works. His command is, "Go, 
teach all peoples, and baptise them, etc." There is only 
this water-baptism, no other, in the Scripture. Since 
infants cannot be taught, they should not be baptised. 
Baptism alone does not wash away sins, but only the 
answer of a good conscience. In chapter six, the ques- 
tion is raised whether the baptism of infants is forbidden 
in the Bible. Yes, says Hiibmaier, for it is commanded 
to baptise only believers. If the plea is valid that infant 
baptism is not forbidden, one might baptise his dog or 
ass, circumcise girls, bring young children to the Sup- 
per, and the like. If you say to baptise an ass is for- 
bidden, because one may baptise only men, then baptise 
Jews and Turks; or if you say, one may baptise only 
believers, then why do you baptise children? A second 
question raised is, whether (as Zwingli had asserted) 
infants had been baptised ever since the days of the 
apostles. The first reply is, that even if this were true 
infant baptism would not be right. But Hiibmaier finds 
evidence in papal documents that a thousand years 
earlier baptism was administered only twice a year, and 
then only to such as could repeat the Creed. Popes and 
councils, he contends, have corrupted the faith and 
practice of the Church. A third question is also dis- 
cussed, are unbaptised children damned or saved? To 
this the reply is given, that God may through his grace 
save young children, because they do not know good 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 117 

from evil. But the author confesses that he is not 
ashamed to be ignorant of what God has not revealed. 

Chapter seven gives advice as to how a Christian 
should regulate his life. It is the sum.of a Christian life, 
says the author, that a man should alter and amend his 
living — hear the command of God, forsake his sins, live 
according to the rule of Christ, permit the working of 
God's Spirit in him and be thankful to God for his 
grace. Christ established a memorial of his death in 
his last Supper, so that we might not forget him. The 
bread is nothing else than bread, and the wine is as any 
other wine; yet is the bread the body of Christ, but 
only as a symbol, while the wine is the blood of Christ, 
but only as a memorial. As often as ye eat this bread 
(mark, he calls it bread, and it is bread), and drink this 
cup, that is wine (mark, it is wine that we drink), ye 
show forth the Lord's death till he come. 

Though Zwingli was not named in this tractate, 
yet his teachings were so clearly singled out for 
criticism and refutation that there was no doubt in 
his mind, or in that of intelligent readers, as to the 
aim and purpose of the writing. The clear exposi- 
tion of Scripture, the moderate tone, the skilful and 
racy way of putting things, convinced many readers 
that the teachings thus set forth were Scriptural and 
true. The best proof of- the circulation and effect 
of the tract is the angry tone that now begins to 
creep into the private letters of the Swiss reformers 



n8 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

when they have occasion to mention Hiibmaier, 
and if a further proof were needed, the tartness of 
Zwingli's reply furnishes it. His tract was entitled 
A True, Thorough Reply to Dr. Balthasar s Little 
Book on Baptism, and the preface is dated Novem- 
ber 5th. 1 It contains little that is new, reiterating 
the arguments of his former treatise, with occasional 
attempts to meet the objections of his adversary. 
The tone is one of irritation, and though he writes 
"dear Balthasar" frequently, there is occasionally 
a betrayal of the fact that their friendly relations 
had been much strained. He especially complains 
that Hiibmaier writes against him, without men- 
tioning him by name, and says that this is wicked 
(dose); he would much rather have an opponent 
come out boldly and declare himself such. He 
presses again the objection that the Anabaptists 
are schismatics, and that their course will result in 
the division of the Church and the destruction of 
the standing order. 

This was evidently the main reason for the deter- 
mined opposition that Zwingli offered to the Ana- 
baptists and their teachings. No doubt he was 



Zwingli, Op., II., i., 343-369. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 119 

correct ; and that such consequences impended was 
reason enough to his mind why the Anabaptists 
should be resisted, condemned, and punished. To 
many of the present day the same logic will be con- 
vincing; but there are many now, as there were 
then a few, who will insist on answering: Granted 
that you state the danger accurately, the question 
still remains, Ought not this to be risked? Should 
we not obey the Scriptures, no matter what the 
consequences promise to be? 

The answer of Hiibmaier, which concluded this 
controversy, though prepared at once, was not 
printed until the following year. It was entitled 
A Dialogue between Balthasar Hubmbr of Friedberg 
and Master Ulrich Zwingli, of Zurich, on Infant 
Baptism. 1 The Dialogue is a controversial device 
that has been much employed, but, one suspects, 
to very little purpose. It is a dangerously simple 

1 Op. 10. This Dialogue gives internal evidence of having been 
rewritten after the author's actual dispute with Zwingli (see p. 126). 
An extensive extract from it is given in Burrage's Anabaptists in 
Switzerland, pp. 148-152. Hiibmaier claims that the words of Zwing- 
li are taken from his published writings. Occasionally the attack is 
pretty severe, as in this case: "You said in opposition to Faber 
that all truth is clearly revealed in the word of God. If, now, in- 
fant baptism is a truth, show us the Scripture in which it is found. 
If you do not, the vicar will complain that you have used against 
him a sword that you now lay aside." 



120 Balthasar Hubmaier [i S24 - 

affair; the writer can conduct both sides of the 
controversy, make the arguments of his imaginary 
disputant as ridiculous and inconclusive as he 
pleases, and his own quite overwhelming. But the 
apparent victory thus gained is the most delusive 
of all dialectical triumphs, for it is open to his 
adversary to retort in the same way, and to win 
victories equally bloodless and equally indecisive. 
A mere tyro in rhetoric, theology, and all else can 
easily beat one who is not there to speak for him- 
self. Hubmaier was rather fond of this form of 
controversial writing, however, which must be ad- 
mitted to have the merit of interest for the reader, 
if it is skilfully done; and he had shortly before 
tried it in a dialogue on the same subject between 
himself and several adversaries at once, of whom 
the chief was CEcolampadius. 1 As to literary form, 
this latter dialogue is the best of his work, and an 
extract will give a better impression regarding it 
than pages of description : 

11 CEcolampadius. Parents will see with pleasure their 
children put to death in the name of Christ. 

1 The disputants were supposed to be, besides Hubmaier and 
CEcolampadius, Thomas, an Augustinian reader, Jacob Immelen, 
and Wolfgang Weissenburger, 



• ■ 




PORTRAIT STATUE OF CECOLAMPADIUS. 

CLOISTER WALL OF THE CATHEDRAL. BASEL. 



i S 26] Becomes an Anabaptist 121 

" Balthasar. My CEcolampadius, how are children 
killed in water-baptism ? Bodily ? Then they must be 
drowned. Do you say spiritually, a killing of the old 
Adam ? Then I hear indeed that cradle-infants can sin 
and resist sin, against the clear word of God. (Deut. i. 
[39]-) Ah, God, whither will the truth drive you! 

" CEc. What need is there of division for the sake of 
the water ? 

" Bal. It is not for the sake of the water, but for the 
high command, the baptism of Christ. Water is not 
baptism, as the making of idols is not mere stone and 
wood, but idolatry which by that is practised against the 
earnest command of God. (Ex. xx. [4], Deut. v. [8].) 

" Wolfgang. Well, in baptism it is not your father's 
faith that is applied, but that of the Christian assembly. 

11 Bal. Some of you tell me of the faith of another, of 
father and mother, some of the faith of godfathers, some 
of the faith of the Church, and all of this is spoken with- 
out foundation in the Scriptures. For if infants are 
baptised on the faith of their father and mother, why is 
it forbidden to the father and mother to present their 
children for baptism ? If it is in the faith of godfathers 
or of the Church, men may be saved by another's faith. 
All of which is contrary to the Scriptures, for, the just 
will live by his own faith. (Hab. ii. [4], Rom. i. [17].) 
He who himself believes and is baptised shall be saved, 
not he for whom one believes. (Mark xvi. [16].) 
Philip demanded the chamberlain's own faith. (Acts 
viii. [37].) ' The Christian Church is built on the con- 
fession of one's own faith. (Matt. xvi. [16].) 



1 Hiibmaier could not be expected to foresee that modern textual 
criticism would cut the ground from under this argument by pro- 
nouncing this verse an interpolation. 



122 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 - 

" (Ec. I will show you a place in Tertullian, that 
baptism is not a bond. 

" Bal. You tell me much of Tertullian, Origen, 
Cyprian, Augustine, councils, histories, and old customs. 
I am compelled to think you are in want of Scriptures. 
They will not come out of the quiver. Dear CEcolam- 
padius, put together your Scriptures concerning infant 
baptism, as I have done with the Scriptures concerning 
the baptism of believers in my little book on baptism 
printed at Strassburg, and we will together weigh them 
and soon we will be at one. Do it. Don't forget it." 

The time was approaching when Hubmaier was 
to experience the results of this breach with the 
Swiss reformers. The long controversy between 
Waldshut and the Austrian Government reached its 
crisis in the late autumn of 1525. The complete 
defeat of the insurgent peasants, and the settlement 
of some other internal troubles, left the Government 
free to turn its sole attention for a time to Wald- 
shut, and it was evident that without external help 
the city could not stand out. But from the one 
available source of aid, the Swiss cities, Waldshut 
had cut itself off by its adherence to its favourite 
preacher. The only terms of peace offered by the 
Government of Ferdinand were that the city should 
return to the old faith, and surrender their pastor 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 123 

and eight of the leading citizens to the tender 
mercies of Austria. These terms were of course 
refused, and there was nothing left but an appeal 
to force. There had all along been a Catholic 
minority in the town, to whom the reforms intro- 
duced had been most obnoxious, and now they 
were emboldened to declare that they meant to 
surrender the city to the Austrians. Hubmaier 
felt that all was lost, and, with some of the more 
timid or more deeply compromised citizens, fled. 
The Austrian forces occupied the city December 
5th, and on the 17th the Vicar-General of the 
Bishop of Constance, John Faber, entered the city 
and celebrated the mass. After an interregnum of 
two years or more, Waldshut was thus forcibly 
restored to the Catholic faith, and we hear no more 
of reformation there. 1 

Hubmaier had been ill during these last trying 
weeks, — so ill that he described himself as sick unto 
death {ein todtkranker Mann), — and his departure 
was made in the utmost haste. As we know from 
a letter of Zwingli's, his wife accompanied him, 
and if we may accept another statement from the 



Kessler, Sabbata, i., 350; Egli, Actensammlung, No. 911. 



124 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1524- 

same source they were not ill provided with money. 1 
Why he should have chosen Zurich as a place of 
refuge it is not easy for us to guess, since in our 
ignorance of the motives that influenced him it 
seems now that this was the very last place that he 
would or should have chosen. Possibly he still 
relied on his former friendly relations with Zwingli, 
and did not yet comprehend how complete was the 
breach between them, nor know how deep was the 
resentment of the Swiss reformer. He must have 
known, or at any rate he very soon became aware, 
that the Zurich council had now adopted very severe 
measures against all Anabaptists, and especially 
those foreign to the canton, for every precaution of 
secrecy was taken by him and his friends. 

About the middle of December he reached the 
city, and was given harbourage (contrary to law) by 
Henry Aberli, an Anabaptist preacher, and was by 
him taken to an inn called the Green Shield, kept 

1 "When he went away [from Zurich] he so worked on these good 
men's feelings that they gave him ten gold pieces. And yet either 
he or his wife had more gold than they had silver. ... I see 
in him (I trust I am mistaken) nothing more than an immoderate 
thirst for money and notoriety." Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, p. 256. 
With this compare the statement of Hiibmaier himself in his recan- 
tation, p. 138 sq. In this issue of veracity, it seems most probable 
that Hiibmaier spoke the truth, and Zwingli a slander. 



i 5 263 Becomes an Anabaptist 125 

by a widow named Bluntschli, who with her daugh- 
ter Regula had been baptised by Aberli a week be- 
fore. 1 Here Hiibmaier had been lodged but three 
or four days when his presence in the city became 
known and he was arrested by order of the council, 
on the ground, as Zwingli puts it, "that he was 
hatching out some monstrosity" — though of this 
there was not the slightest proof, then or after- 
wards. 

Some time before this, Hiibmaier had rather in- 
discreetly written letters to the Zurich council, in 
which he had challenged Zwingli to a debate on the 
subject of baptism, and declared that he would 
confute the Zurich preacher out of his own writings. 
The council now took him at his word and sum- 
moned him to meet Zwingli. There were present 
also a number of the Swiss leaders, including 
Engelhard, Leo Juda, Sebastian Hofmeister, and 
Megander. Both Hiibmaier and Zwingli have left 
accounts 3 of this debate and the subsequent 



1 They were fined for this : Aberli fifteen pounds for disobedience 
of the council's previous mandates, and five pounds in addition for 
each person baptised by him. The widow and her daughter were 
fined five pounds each. Egli, Actensammlung, No. 910. 

2 Hiibmaier, in the Dialogue already cited. Zwingli's account is 
in two letters, one to his friend Capito, bearing date of January I, 



126 Balthasar Hubmaier [1524- 

proceedings. Not only are these difficult to recon- 
cile, but it is not always easy to reconcile Zwingli 
with himself, as he has given two versions of the af- 
fair, differing in important particulars. In one letter 
he says : " I met the fellow and rendered him mute as 
a fish," but in the other he admits that Hubmaier 
had a good deal to say for himself and that the 
debate was protracted. Hubmaier, in the Dialogue 
already referred to, so conducts the debate as to 
make it appear that he won a triumphant victory — 
that Zwingli was the one "rendered mute as a 
fish." It is the old story; has there ever been a 
religious debate since the world was, in which both 
sides did not claim the victory? 

But in this case we have also a quite impartial 
testimony from a contemporary chronicle. In the 
course of the debate Hubmaier attempted to make 
good his promise of confuting Zwingli out of his 
own mouth. 

"In 1523 . . . I conferred with you in Graben 
street upon the Scriptures relating to baptism ; then and 

1526, the other addressed to Peter Gynorseus, dated August 31, 
1526. They are printed in full, in an English translation, in Jack- 
son's Huldreich Zwingli, p. 249^. The originals are in Staehelin's 
Brief e aus der Reformationzeit, p. 20, and Zwingli, Op., VII., i., 
536. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 127 

there you said I was right in saying that children should 
not be baptised before they were instructed in the faith; 
this had been the custom previously, therefore such were 
called catechumens. You promised to bring this out in 
your ' Exposition ' of the Articles, as you did in Ar- 
ticle XVIII. on Confirmation. Any one who reads it 
will find therein your opinion clearly expressed. Sebas- 
tian Ruckensperger of St. Gall . . . was present. 
So you confessed in your book upon the unruly spirits, 
that those who baptise infants could quote no clear word 
of Scripture ordering them to baptise them. From this 
learn, friend Zwingli, how your conversation, writing, 
and preaching agree." ' 

This was carrying the war into Africa, surely, and 
must have been most embarrassing to Zwingli, 
especially as it was not only true, but could be 
proved by witnesses as well as by his writings. 



1 Fiisslin, Beytrage, p. I, n. 54, pp. 252, 253. In one of his tracts 
on baptism Hiibmaier also asserts that he had similar confessions, in 
their own handwriting, from other Swiss leaders. CEcolampadius 
said : "Thus far we have found no passage in the Scriptures that 
would move us to confess the baptism of infants." Leo Juda : 
" We have no plain word of God about the baptism of infants." 
Sebastian Hofmeister : "For the sake of the truth we have not 
been ashamed to confess publicly before the Council in Schaffhausen 
that our brother Zwingli is erring from the right way, and is not 
proceeding according to the gospel, if he determines that little child- 
ren should be baptised. I have certainly not allowed myself to be 
compelled to baptise my children, and therefore you do what is ex- 
actly Christian when you introduce again now the true baptism of 
Christ that had been so long neglected." He quotes Capito and 
Bucer to similar effect. Hoschek, ii., 133 sq. 



128 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 524 - 

Nevertheless, then as always, the council gave the 
victory to Zwingli. 

The formal hearing seems to have been held 
January 13, 1526, when (according to Zwingli) the 
council took the ground that Htibmaier should 
either depart from the city or recant his doctrine. 
The official record represents him as declaring that 
he accepted the validity of infant baptism and 
promised thereafter to abstain from rebaptising. 1 
In the meantime (January 3rd) messengers had 
arrived from the Emperor and Ferdinand, demand- 
ing that Hiibmaier be delivered to them for punish- 
ment, but twice the council had refused to grant 
this request. Zwingli boasts of this as an evidence 
of extreme liberality, and he is probably entitled to 
make much of the fact ; but possibly it was not an 
exceptional liberality in this case, so much as the 
pursuance of the regular policy of the Swiss can- 
tons. It may be conjectured that knowledge of 
these demands, and fear that he might be surren- 
dered, had much to do with inducing Hiibmaier to 
moderate his statements. 

At this time he seems to have been treated with 



1 Egli, Actensammlung, p. 431. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 129 

no direct violence, and all the circumstances confirm 
the statement of Zwingli that he made an offer, of 
his own will, to recant his former opinions, and did 
so in his own words, not in any formulae prescribed 
by the council. It was arranged that he should 
publicly read this recantation in the Minster of Our 
Lady, which was duly accomplished, after which a 
sermon or address was delivered by Zwingli. Then, 
to the consternation of all, Hiibmaier arose, re- 
canted his recantation, and went on to attack infant 
baptism, and to defend the baptism of believers 
only. He was violently interrupted, hurried away, 
and thrown into prison, where he was treated with 
great rigour for a month. He complains of this in 
his Dialogue: "Me, a sick man, just risen from a 
death-bed, hunted, exiled, and having lost every- 
thing I possessed, they required through the ex- 
ecutioner to teach another faith." His wife was 
also cast into prison, without so much as a hearing. 
A considerable number of other Anabaptists were 
also arrested and all were imprisoned together in 
the Water-tower, where they were ordered by the 
council to be kept on bread and water until they 
recanted. 



130 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

" The imprisoned [says Hubmaier] were told that 
they would be kept in the prison until their death if they 
did not recant, so that they would behold neither sun 
nor moon, and that all together, the living and the dead, 
should remain in tha dark tower until no one remained 
alive, so that in this way all should die together, perish- 
ing and rotting by the stench." 

It would be hard to believe that the people of 
Zurich would have tolerated such inhuman cruelty, 
or that the council were capable of inflicting it, if 
official records 1 did not fully confirm these state- 
ments. 

It was while suffering this confinement, and 
expecting the worst, that Hubmaier composed his 
Twelve Articles of Christian Belief y which he printed 
a year later at Nikolsburg. These articles are set 
forth in the form of a prayer — possibly a reminis- 
cence of the Confessions of Augustine — and perhaps 
none of Hubmaier's writings is so characteristic of 
the spirit of the man. Their comparative brevity 
makes it possible to quote these articles in full : 

" [i.] I believe in God, Father Almighty, maker of 
heaven and earth, as my most precious Lord and most 
merciful Father, who for my sake hast created heaven 
and earth and all that in them is, and hast made me as 



Egli, Actensammlung, Nos. 934, 936, 937, 1338. 



1 526] Becomes an Anabaptist 131 

thy loved child from thy fatherly grace a lord over it and 
heir, to remain in it and live eternally. Though I con- 
fess that we men, by the disobedience of Adam, lost this 
sonship rich in grace, this honour and heirship, neverthe- 
less in thee as my most gracious Father I set all my 
comfort, hope and trust , and know surely and certainly 
that this fall will not be to me injurious or bring con- 
demnation. 

" [2.] I believe also in Jesus Christ, thine only be- 
gotten Son, our Lord, that he for my sake has expiated 
before thee for this fall, and made peace between thee 
and me, a poor sinner, and by his obedience obtained 
again for me the heirship. Also he has, by his holy word 
sent, again given me power to become thy child in faith. 
I hope and trust him wholly that he will not let his saving 
and comforting name Jesus (for I believe he is Christ, 
true God and man) be lost on me, a miserable sinner, 
but that he will redeem me from all my sins. 

" [3.] I believe and confess, my Lord Jesus Christ, 
that thou wast conceived by the Holy Spirit, without 
any human seed, born from Mary, the pure and ever 
chaste virgin, that thou mightest bring again to me and 
all believing men, and mightest obtain from thy Heavenly 
Father the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was with- 
drawn from me by reason of my sin. I believe and trust 
that the Holy Spirit has come in me, and the power of 
the Most High God has, as with Mary, overshadowed 
my soul; that I may conceive the new man, and so in 
thy living, indestructible word and in the Spirit, be born 
again and see the kingdom of God. For thou, Son of the 
living God, didst become man, in order that through 
thee we might become children of God. 

" [4.] I believe and confess also that thou didst suffer 



13 2 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

under Pontius Pilate, wast crucified, dead and buried, 
and all that because of my sins, in order that thou 
mightest redeem and ransom me from the eternal cross, 
pangs, suffering and death, by thy cross, suffering, 
anguish and need, pangs and bitter death, as well as by 
the pouring out of thy rose-red blood, in which thy 
greatest and highest love to us poor men is recognised. 
For thou hast changed for us thy heavy cross into a light 
yoke, thy bitter sufferings into imperishable joys, and 
thy death in the midst of anger into eternal life. There- 
fore I will praise and thank thee, my gracious Lord Jesus 
Christ, for ever and ever. 

" [5-] I believe also and confess, O Christ, who hast 
mercy on me, that thou didst in spirit go and preach the 
gospel to the spirits that were in prison, that is, to the 
holy patriarchs, and didst proclaim to them the new 
and joyous tidings, to wit, that thou according to the 
prophesying of the holy prophets wast become man, 
sufferedst pangs and death, hadst paid and satisfied for 
the sins of all men as they for a long time had desired 
with great earnestness, devotion and fervent zeal, and 
powerfully leddest them accordingly out of the prison; 
and on the third day, united together again spirit, soul 
and body in the grave, and like a strong and powerful 
conqueror of death, hell and the devil, didst rise again 
from the dead for our sakes, so that all who believe in 
thee should not perish but in thee overcome sin, death, 
hell and devils, and obtain eternal life as thy brother 
and co-heir. 

" [6.] I believe also and confess, my Lord Jesus 
Christ, that thou after those forty days in which thou 
didst walk on the earth for a testimony of thy joyous 
resurrection, didst ascend into heaven and sit down at 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 133 

the right hand of thy Heavenly Father, in the same 
power, glory and praise with the Father, who hath given 
to thee all power over all his possessions, in heaven and 
on earth. There thou sittest, mighty and strong, to help 
all believers who set their trust, comfort and hope in 
thee, and cry to thee in all their needs. Thou also 
callest all those who are heavy laden to come unto thee 
and thou wilt give them rest. Therefore, O Christ, 
compassionate to me, there is no need to pray to thee in 
this place or that, neither in bread nor wine, for thou art 
found sitting at the right hand of thy Heavenly Father, 
as the holy Stephen saw thee and prayed to thee. It is 
also in vain to seek another advocate. Thou art and wilt 
be the only one. He who believeth otherwise is in error. 
11 [7.] I believe and confess also that thence thou wilt 
come to judge the quick and the dead on the day of the 
last judgment, which will be to all godly men a specially 
longed-for and joyous day. Then shall we see face to 
face our God and Saviour, in his great glory and majesty 
coming in the clouds of heaven. Then will be ended 
our fleshly, sinful and godless life. Then will each one 
receive the reward of his work; those who have done 
good will enter into eternal life, but those who have 
done evil into eternal fire. O my Lord Jesus Christ, 
shorten the days and come down to us! Yet give us 
grace and strength so to direct our lives in the meantime 
that we may be worthy to hear then with joy thy gra- 
cious and sweet voice, when thou wilt say, ' Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry 
and ye gave me food, I was thirsty and ye gave me 
drink, I was a stranger and ye took me in, I was naked 
and ye clothed me, I was sick and ye visited me, I was 



134 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

in prison and ye came unto me. Verily I say to you, 
Whatsoever ye have done to one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done to me.' But the fearful and un- 
believing, the excommunicated, unchaste, adulterers, 
drunkards, blasphemers, proud, envious, avaricious, rob- 
bers, bloodthirsty, sorcerers, idolaters, whoremongers, 
their part will be in the sea that burneth with fire and 
brimstone. From that deliver us at all times, O gracious 
and good Lord Jesus Christ. 

" [8.] I believe also in the Holy Spirit, who proceed- 
eth from the Father and the Son, and yet with them is the 
only and true God, who sanctifieth all things, and without 
him is nothing holy, in whom I set all my trust that he 
will teach me all truth, increase my faith and kindle the 
fire of love in my heart by his holy inspiration, and truly 
kindle it that it may burn in true, unfeigned and Christ- 
ian love to God and my neighbour. For that I pray thee 
from the heart, my God, my Lord, my Comforter. 

" [9*] I believe also and confess a holy Catholic 
Christian Church, which is the communion of saints, and 
a brotherhood of many pious and believing men, who 
unitedly confess one Lord, one God, one faith and one 
baptism; assembled, maintained and ruled on earth by 
the only living and divine word, altogether beautiful and 
without any spot, unerring, pure, without wrinkle and 
blameless. I also confess publicly that thou, my Lord 
Jesus Christ, by thy rose-red blood hast sanctified to 
thyself the Church, art her head and bridegroom, wilt 
also be with her to the end of the world. O my God, 
grant that I and all men believing in Christ may finally 
be found in this Church; also that we unitedly with her 
believe, teach and hold all that thou commandest us by 
thy word, and root out all things opposed that thou hast 



i 5 26] Becomes an Anabaptist 135 

not planted; that we be not led into error by any views 
of men, institutions, or doctrine of the old Fathers, 
Popes, cardinals, universities, or old customs. O my 
Lord Jesus Christ, establish again the two bands, to wit, 
water-baptism and the Supper, with which thou hast 
externally girded and bound thy bride. For unless 
these two shall be again established and used according 
to thine institution and order, we have among us neither 
faith, love, church, oath, brotherly discipline, ban nor 
exclusion, without which things it will never be well in 
thy Church. 

" [10.] I believe and confess also the remission of sins, 
so that this Christian Church has received keys, com- 
mand and power from thee, O Christ, to open the gates 
of heaven for the sinner as often as he repenteth and is 
sorry for his sin, and receive him again into the holy as- 
sembly of believers in Christ, like the lost son and the 
repentant Corinthian. But when he, after the threefold 
brotherly reproof, will not abstain from sin, I firmly be- 
lieve that this Church also hath power to exclude him and 
to hold him as a publican and heathen. Here I believe 
and confess openly, my Lord Jesus Christ, that whom- 
soever the Christian Church on earth thus looseth, he is 
certainly loosed and released from his sins in heaven. 
Again, whomsoever the Church bindeth and casteth out of 
her assembly on earth, he is bound before God in heaven 
and excluded from the Catholic Christian Church (out 
of which is no salvation), since Christ himself while he 
was yet on earth, hung at her side, gave and ordained for 
his spouse and beloved bride both keys. 

" [11.] I believe also and confess a resurrection of the 
flesh, yea, even the body with which I am now sur- 
rounded, though it may be eaten by worms, drowned, 



136 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

frozen, or burned. Yea, and though my temporal 
honour, goods, body and life be taken from me, yet will 
I, at the day of the joyous resurrection of my flesh, first 
truly receive the true honour which avails before God, 
goods that pass not away, a body incapable of suffering, 
made clear and immortal, and eternal life. O my Medi- 
ator, Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen and hold me in thy 
faith! 

" [12.] I believe and confess also an eternal life which 
thou, my Lord and God, wilt give to thy faithful and 
elect after this suffering life; that thou wilt endow them 
with sure, clear and joyous beholding of thy divine 
countenance, and satisfy them in all their desires with 
eternal rest, eternal peace and eternal salvation, which 
joy, delight and bliss no man can express or conceive 
here on earth. For no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, 
and never hath entered into man's heart what God hath 
prepared for those who love him. 

" O holy God, O mighty God, O immortal God, that 
is my belief, which I confess with heart and mouth and 
have witnessed before the Church in water-baptism. 
Faithfully, graciously, keep me in that till my end, I 
pray thee. And though I be driven from it by human 
fear and terror, by tyranny, pangs, sword, fire or water, 
yet hereby I cry to thee, O my merciful Father: Raise 
me up again by the grace of thy Holy Spirit, and let me 
not depart in death without this faith. This I pray thee 
from the bottom of my heart, through Jesus Christ, thy 
best-beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour. For in thee, 
O Father, I hope ; let me not be put to shame in eternity. 
Amen." 1 



1 This translation was made by the Rev. Professor Howard 
Osgood, D.D., of the Rochester Theological Seminary, but some 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 137 

The closing paragraph of the above, like other 
words already quoted, clearly implies that Hub- 
maier was subjected to torture during his imprison- 
ment at Zurich, and a statement of Faber's confirms 
this view of the case. 1 Nevertheless, Faber might 
have been wrong, and the admirers of Zwingli have 
been loath to admit the validity of the inference 
one would naturally draw from Hiibmaier's words. 
The affair has been put beyond the possibility of 
doubt, however, by the publication of a letter 
previously unknown : 

11 The next day, [says Zwingli,] he was thrust back 
into prison and tortured. It is clear the man had be- 
come a sport of demons, so he recanted not frankly as 
he had promised; nay, he said he entertained no other 
opinions than those taught by me, execrated the error 
and obstinacy of the Catabaptists, repeated this three 
times when stretched upon the rack, and bewailed his 
misery and the wrath of God which in this affair was so 
unkind." 2 



changes have been made by the author of this biography, who 
therefore takes full responsibility for it, while thus making his 
acknowledgment of indebtedness to his former teacher and present 
much-valued friend. 

1 Quoted by Loserth, Beilage, No. 10. 

2 The callousness with which Zwingli records this treatment of his 
former friend is striking. There are other similar cases in his 
writings. For the letter, see Jackson, Huldreich Zwingli, p. 250. 



138 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 _ 

By these gentle means he was "allured" (the grim 
pleasantry is Zwingli's) into making a more explicit 
recantation than before, which is still preserved in 
the archives of Zurich, and is believed by competent, 
judges to be in his own handwriting. It bears no 
date, but is believed to belong to about the middle 
of March, and reads as follows : 

" I Balthasar Huobmaier, of Fridberg, confess openly 
with this my handwriting, that I have not otherwise 
known or understood all Scriptures, which speak of 
water-baptism, than that one should first preach, after that 
believe, and thirdly be baptised, on which I have finally 
established myself. But now has been made known to 
me through Master Huldrich Zwingli the covenant of 
God made with Abraham and his seed, also circumcision 
as a covenant sign, which I could not disprove. Also 
it was put before me by others, as Master Leo [Juda], 
Doctor Bastian [Sebastian Hofmeister] and Miconien 
[Myconius], how love should be a judge and judger in 
all writings, which has gone very much to my heart ; and 
also I have thought much of love, and have been finally 
moved to fall from my purpose, namely, that one should 
not baptise children, and that in the matter of rebaptism 
I have erred. 

"2. For the rest, it comes to me that I am under 
accusation, as if I rejected government and say that a 
Christian cannot sit in government [or] hold office — in 
which violence and injustice is done to me. I have 
always and everywhere said that a Christian may well 
sit in government, arid that the more Christian he is, the 




HULDREICH ZWINQLI. 

FROM A MEZZOTINT BY R. HOUSTON. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 139 

more honourably would he rule. This I have proved 
with many writings, which I do not now remember. 

11 3. Again I am accused as if I would have made 
all things common, which yet I have not done, but I have 
called this a Christian community of goods: that when 
one have and see his neighbour suffer, he should give 
him alms, in order that the hungry, thirsty, naked and 
imprisoned may be helped; and that the more a man 
practice such works of mercy, the nearer he would be 
to the spirit of Christianity. 

"4. So also to baptism I have added nothing, have 
not boasted any perception about it, neither have I been 
the first who suffered himself to be baptised, but many 
before me, even a quarter of a year. Some likewise 
suffered themselves to be baptised before me in Wald- 
shut. Likewise also particularly have I baptised no one 
in the jurisdiction and districts of my Lords, the Zurich 
Council — which has been given out about me untruth- 
fully. 

"5. Again, likewise I have never said that I am 
without sin, or that I never could sin, but always and 
everywhere have I confessed that I am a poor sinner, 
conceived and born in sin, and shall always remain a 
sinner till death. May God not reckon to me such sin 
of mine, to eternal condemnation. Therefore, in such 
things as I am accused of, no one should boast of my 
name or use me as a cloak. 

"6. Thirdly, since now Augustine and many others 
after him even in our times have erred in baptism, there- 
fore I beseech your wisdom for God's sake, wherever I 
have herein embittered or injured anyone, that he may 
forgive me, as we desire that God should forgive us our 
sins. May your wisdom also be pleased to remember 



Ho Balthasar Hubmaier [i S24 - 

my great sickness, adversity, banishment and poverty, 
since I have no coat of my own to put on, thus unclad 
came I away. Also be pleased to remember the great 
wrath and fury which my adversaries have embraced 
against me, and be pleased therefore to look upon me in 
mercy for God's sake, that as much as lies in your wisdom 
I may not come or be delivered into the hands of my 
enemies, especially as I am an infirm man and in this 
infirm body cannot do without bodily care. So will I 
pray to God for your wisdom, and will never forget 
your Christian government my life long. Neither shall 
any evil be shown by me to your wisdom nor anybody 
else, either with words or works. This your wisdom 
may truly trust me." ' 

Except for the first paragraph, this is not a re- 
cantation, but an apology. The first paragraph is 
a guarded admission that he had previously been in 
error respecting infant baptism and rebaptism — an 
admission that Hubmaier should never have made, 
and the making of which must considerably modify 
the admiration that otherwise may justly be enter- 
tained for his character and conduct. It is only 
just, however, to remind ourselves that fortitude in 
the endurance of excruciating pain is not the gift of 

1 Staehelin {Huldreich Zwingli, i., 516) differs from Egli in holding 
that this is the original recantation of December or January, not the 
final document. It seems plain that Egli's view is sustained by the 
closing paragraph and its appeal for help, which was not likely to 
have been inserted in the first document. The original text is given 
in Egli's Actensammlung, No. 940. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 141 

every man. Let him who is quite certain that his 
own fortitude would not give way under torture, 
cast the first stone at such men as have yielded their 
convictions on the rack. 

It is certain that Hiibmaier himself was deeply 
repentant in after years for this error. In his Short 
Apology (Op. 13) he says: 

" I may err — I am a man — but a heretic I cannot be, 
because I ask constantly for instruction in the word of 
God. But never has any one come to me and pointed 
out a single word, but one single man and his followers 
— against his own previous preaching, word and print, 
whose name I spare for the sake of God's word — who 
against common justice and appeal in behalf of his own 
government, the confederacy, and also the Emperor, by 
capture, imprisonment, sufferings and the hangman, 
tried to teach me the faith. But faith is a work of God 
and not of the heretics' tower, in which one sees neither 
sun nor moon, and lives on nothing but water and bread. 
But God be praised, who delivered me from this den of 
lions, where dead and living men lay side by side and 
perished. O God, pardon me my weakness. It is good 
for me (as David says) that thou hast humbled me." 

Having obtained this recantation, such as it was 
and by such methods, the council decreed that 
Hiibmaier should depart immediately from the 
country. It was in fear of such a decision that the 
closing paragraph of the document was written. 



H 2 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

Zwingli tells us that he and his friends interceded 
with the council, that this order should not be 
executed, since it would put Hubmaier in great 
peril, both from the other Swiss authorities and 
from the Emperor. Accordingly, he was suffered 
to remain for a time, under close surveillance, no 
doubt, until a favourable opportunity offered for 
sending" him away so quietly that even the citizens 
of Zurich did not know of his departure. He made 
his way first to Constance, thence to Augsburg, and 
then, by what means we do not know, 1 to Nikols- 
burg, in Moravia, where he seems to have arrived 
not later than July, 1526. His brief visit by the 
way at Augsburg is chiefly noteworthy for his 
meeting there, for the first time, John Denck, 
whom he is supposed then and there to have won 
over to Anabaptism. 

Excursus on the Act of Baptism among the A nabaptists 

The baptism by Hubmaier of three hundred from a 
milkpail, according to the statement of a contemporary 
record, naturally suggests an inquiry as to the method 

1 From a letter of QEcolampadius it would appear that he stopped 
also for a time in the Austrian city of Steyer. A visit to Regens- 
burg, as asserted by some, is possible; but Hoschek (i., 559) con- 
founds with this visit (if it occurred) the circumstances, already 
narrated, of Hubmaier's first leaving that city. 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 143 

of administering baptism practised by the Anabaptists. 
Affusion was evidently the method on this occasion, 
and there is no good reason to suppose that Hiibmaier 
ever changed his practice. His clearest reference to the 
subject is contained in his tract On the Christian Baptis7n 
of Believers, in which he says: " To baptise in water is 
to pour outward water over the confessor of his sins, in 
accordance with the divine command, and to inscribe 
him in the number of sinners upon his own confession 
and acknowledgment." The first baptism among the 
Swiss Anabaptists was that of George Blaurock by Conrad 
Grebel, and it is said that Blaurock fell on his knees and 
Grebel baptised him — evidently an affusion or aspersion. 
The next recorded baptisms were performed by Blaurock 
and Mantz, and in each case it is said that it was done 
from a dipper or basin (Egli, Actensammlung, pp. 282- 
284). These baptisms all occurred in late January or 
early February, 1525. But a few weeks later Conrad 
Grebel, at least, had obtained clearer light upon the 
subject. A contemporary chronicler say: "Wolfgang 
Uoliman [or Uliman, a native of St. Gall, and afterwards 
active among the Anabaptists there] met Conrad Grebel 
on the way to Schaffhausen, and in his company [or, by 
him, bet ihnen\ was so highly instructed in Anabaptism 
that he would not be simply poured upon with water 
from a dish but entirely naked was pressed down and 
covered over in the Rhine." (Kessler, Sabbata, i., 262.) 
This is not merely a statement that Grebel immersed 
Uliman, which would be important, but also a testimony 
that, according to the writer's belief, such immersion was 
the result of complete instruction in Anabaptism — in 
other words, that immersion was the usual practice of 
the well-instructed Anabaptists. 



i44 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

This baptism of Uliman was before March i, 1525. 
On Palm Sunday Grebel baptised a large number of 
people from St. Gall in the Sitter River — the only place 
near the city well adapted for immersion, and some two 
miles from the town. It would be silly to maintain that 
the people walked that distance to be sprinkled. This 
must be taken, therefore, as confirmation of the view that 
immersion was fast replacing affusion among the Swiss 
Anabaptists. The action of the Zurich Council on March 
7, 1526, in making drowning the penalty of contumacious 
persistence in Anabaptism (Egli, Actensammlung, No. 
936) shows a grim determination to " make the punish- 
ment fit the crime," which would be meaningless if im- 
mersion were not a general practice in the sect. That 
this is a correct interpretation of the decree, the words 
of Zwingli in his Refutation of the Tricks of the Cata- 
baptists, sufficiently testify: "After that conference (the 
tenth, with the others, public or private) the most 
honourable senate [council] decreed that he should be 
drowned who rebaptised another " — the exact words are, 
aquis mergere, qui merserit baptismo eum qui prius emer- 
serat. (Zwingli, Op., iii., 364.) That the Swiss Ana- 
baptists began with the practice of affusion, but soon 
generally adopted immersion, seems therefore to be the 
most probable conclusion from all the facts accessible. 

Elsewhere we find definite proofs of immersion only 
among the Anabaptists of Augsburg, and in Poland, 
where the practice was introduced in 1575. It has been 
conjectured that Swiss Anabaptists fled to Poland and 
were influential in securing the adoption of immersion 
there, but documentary proof of this is wholly lacking. 
A conjecture rather more probable is that the Anabap- 
tists of Poland, having before their eyes the practice of 



1526] Becomes an Anabaptist 145 

the Greek Church, which has never known any baptism 
other than immersion, were influenced by this example. 
The later Anabaptists known as Mennonites seem to have 
consistently practised affusion from the first — at least 
there is no case known to the contrary, except the con- 
gregation at Rhynsburg, which began to practice immer- 
sion in 1620. 



CHAPTER V 

HUBMAIER AT NIKOLSBURG 

1526-1528 

TT is not difficult to conjecture why Hiibmaier 
* chose Nikolsburg as his next residence. Mora- 
via was almost the only province in Europe where 
he could hope to find more than a temporary refuge. 
Not only did this region promise a comparatively 
safe haven, but it is probable that a large number 
of Anabaptists had already gone thither. 1 Here 
was not only safety, but the most fruitful field of 
labour known to him. That he should proceed at 
once to Moravia, and begin his labours with re- 
doubled energy is precisely what we should expect 
of such a man. His activity would be stimulated, 



1 If they did not actually precede Hiibmaier, they must have 
arrived in large numbers at about the same time, for a few months 
afterward they were estimated at twelve thousand (Loserth, p. 127). 
That these were all converts, and not in large part immigrants, is 
incredible. 

146 



[1526-1528] At Nikolsburg 147 

no doubt, by memory of what he had experienced 
at Zurich, and especially by recollection that physi- 
cal weakness and love of life had led him to deny 
the truth. 

He must have felt that the lines had fallen to him 
in pleasant places. The Nikolsburg of to-day is a 
delightfully quaint town, of a pronounced mediaeval 
flavour. It is out of the beaten track of globe- 
trotters, difficult of access, and hence seldom visited 
by the ordinary tourist. The old walls have disap- 
peared, but the city has availed itself little of its 
liberty to straggle into the fields. The houses are 
grouped as of old about the steep, rocky hill, whose 
summit is occupied by the castle and the church — 
houses low and long, built flush with the street and 
entered from the street level, or at most by one or 
two rude stone steps; houses solidly built of stone, 
with red-tiled roofs, from which little, wicked- 
looking windows wink at the foreigner as he passes 
by. The bright and curious costumes of the peas- 
ants who throng the streets on a gala day are an 
added touch of medievalism, for they are the same 
that have been worn for countless generations. 
Little but German is spoken in the town, and the 



148 Balthasar Hubmaier [1526- 

people are mostly devout Roman Catholics, though 
a small and new Lutheran church stands on the 
outskirts. No relics remain of the short-lived re- 
formation here, and the name of Hubmaier has 
completely faded from recollection. The historian 
of the town, an antiquarian of some repute, had 
never heard the name. 

We know as yet from original sources too little 
about the religious history of Moravia prior to 
1526; but that the influence of Hus had been deeply 
felt there is certain. There was a strong evangelical 
party in the province before the arrival of Hiib- 
maier, which had gained many adherents among 
prelates, clergy, and noblemen, as well as among 
the people at large. The Unitas Fratrum, though 
originating in Bohemia, could almost claim Moravia 
as the twin land of their birth, and later they be- 
came so identified with it as to bear, to this day, 
the name Moravians. The political circumstances 
were such as to favour an evangelical revival. 
Since the twelfth century Moravia — a small terri- 
tory of only 8,500 square miles, a little larger than 
the State of Massachusetts — had been a Margravate 
held by the younger sons of the kings of Bohemia, 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 149 

of whose crown it was a fief. But the royal power 
had always been weak, and Hiibmaier's coming 
coincided with an interregnum. On August 29, 
1526, Louis II. of Bohemia was defeated by the 
Turks at Mohacs, Hungary, and fell in the battle. 
As he left no heirs, in the following October the 
diet chose as king the Archduke Ferdinand, of 
Austria, who had married a sister of Louis and was 
in every way the most eligible prince. The choice 
was by no means a popular one, however, and it was 
some time before Ferdinand's royal authority was es- 
tablished. In the meantime, the Moravian nobles, 
always enjoying a large measure of independence, 
were absolute masters of the situation, and did as 
seemed to them good. 

The people of Moravia were at this time mainly 
Germans, though there was among them a large 
proportion of that Czech (Slav) race which in early 
times had settled both this region and Bohemia. 
At the present day less than twenty per cent, of 
the Moravian people are Czechs, but it is probable 
that in the Reformation era the proportion was 
much larger. Evangelical views seem to have 
made progress equally among both peoples, but, if 



i5° Balthasar Hiibmaier [ I52 6- 

we may draw safe inference from the names that 
continually appear in the records, the Anabaptists 
were from the first and continued to be mostly 
Germans. 

By the evangelical Christians of Moravia Hiib- 
maier was kindly, even warmly, received. He be- 
came a guest in the home of Oswald Glaidt, who 
was then the coadjutor of the chief evangelical 
preacher, Hans Spitalmaier, both natives of Bavaria. 
This common nativity was an additional bond be- 
tween them and Hiibmaier, who praises both "be- 
cause they bravely and faithfully held up the light 
of evangelical purity, and put it on the candlestick, 
so as he had known the like in no region." Glaidt 
was soon won to Anabaptist views by his eloquent 
and persuasive guest, and was baptised. Spital- 
maier must have been gained at about the same 
time, for shortly after this we find him also a co- 
worker with Hiibmaier. A still more important 
convert was Martin Goschel, who had once been 
sub-bishop of Olmiitz, and later provost of a nun- 
nery at Kanitz. This latter position, with its large 
income, he attempted to hold in spite of his adop- 
tion and advocacy of evangelical doctrine, and he 



i 52 8] At Nikolsburg 151 

had only recently been ousted from it, resisting to 
the last. 

But a yet greater triumph was to follow. Nikols- 
burg was in the domains of the barons of Lichten- 
stein, a Moravian noble family tracing its lineage 
back to the twelfth century, of which house there 
were then two brothers, Leonard and John. They 
had been well disposed towards evangelical doctrine, 
and it was due to their encouragement that the 
gospel had already made so great progress at 
Nikolsburg. They also soon came under the influ- 
ence of Hubmaier, became convinced by his pre- 
sentation of the truth, and were publicly baptised 
on confession of their faith. 1 Other noblemen of 
the region were well disposed to evangelical preach- 
ing, and from the fact that Hubmaier dedicated to 
them many of his treatises we may fairly infer that 
he expected at least their favour and protection, and 
was not without hopes of winning them also to 
his party. Such men were John of Brunnstein and 
Helfenstein, Governor-General of Moravia, to whom 
The Reason Why Every Man should Receive Baptism 



1 See the Anabaptist chronicles quoted by Beck, Geschichts-Biicher, 
p. 48. 



i5 2 Balthasar Hiibmaier [ I52 6- 

was inscribed ; Lord Arkleb of Boskowitz, Chancel- 
lor of Moravia, to whom was dedicated the treatise 
On the Sword ; Lord Burian, of Kornitz, whose 
name heads The Form of the Supper ; Frederick of 
Silesia, the patron of The Second Book on the Will ; 
Jan Dubcansky, to whom the preface of The Form 
of Baptism is addressed in such terms as to make 
it certain that Hiibmaier had great hopes of his 
adhesion to Anabaptism. 

Here was a new experience indeed for the Ana- 
baptists! Everywhere they had been despised, 
persecuted, counting themselves fortunate if barely 
permitted to live : here they not only found them- 
selves tolerated, but saw their rulers actually 
embracing their faith, publicly avowing it, and 
using their wealth and power to promote the 
preaching of a pure gospel. The golden age 
seemed to have come for them — pity it should have 
endured for so short a time! Little more than a 
twelvemonth was Hiibmaier permitted to carry on 
this work, but into that space he condensed the 
labours of many a lifetime. So great was the pro- 
gress of the Anabaptists that within this single year 
not fewer than six thousand persons were added to 



1528] At Nikolsburg 153 

them by baptism — some say double that number, 
but that seems hardly credible. 

It must not be inferred, of course, that this was 
all the result of one man's labours. There were 
a multitude of other fervent preachers of the gos- 
pel; indeed, it is little exaggeration to say that 
every Anabaptist was an apostle and missionary. 
Hiibmaier was, however, the acknowledged leader. 
In learning, in character, in eloquence, he was not 
less fitted for leadership than Luther or Zwingli; and 
had continued opportunity been offered him, there 
can be little doubt that he would have here accom- 
plished that which would have left his name by the 
side of the greatest preachers and reformers of the 
age. If Luther had been crushed at Worms as 
Hus had been at Constance, we might now read 
as little of him as we do of Hiibmaier. 

Not only was he active as preacher and organiser, 
but his pen was incessantly busy. It was a fortu- 
nate circumstance for him that a printer of Zurich, 
Simprecht Sorg, surnamed Froschower, 1 had been 
compelled to flee from persecution, and had made 

1 This Froschower, or Froschauer, was the printer of Zwingli's 
early tracts, but had become an Anabaptist, and could no longer re- 
main and conduct his business at Zurich. 



154 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 52 6- 

his way to Nikolsburg, with the outfit of a printing 
establishment, and had arrived there at about the 
same time with himself. Froschower now became 
the regular publisher of Hiibmaier' s tracts, which 
flowed from the press in a steady stream. No 
fewer than seventeen pamphlets and treatises bear 
date of Nikolsburg, 1526 and 1527, though several 
of these we know to have been composed earlier. 
A few of these are quite brief, while others are 
booklets of some size. While we have no precise 
information as to the number of these publications 
issued and circulated, we know that it was very 
large, that they were read far and wide, and that 
they had a profound influence upon those into 
whose hands they fell. The greatest efforts were 
made to secure and destroy these pamphlets, and 
with measurable success, for only a few copies of 
each issue survive, in some cases a unique specimen 
only. 

Of these Nikolsburg writings eleven are con- 
cerned with the Christian sacraments, or the ordin- 
ances of the Church, and no fewer than six of them 
with the ordinance of baptism ; four are apologetic 
and polemic; while two are contributions to sys- 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 155 

tematic theology. Quotations have already been 
made from three of the first class of pamphlets {Op. 
10, 17, 18) to give an idea of their nature and con- 
tents ; and the passages that are of personal interest 
have been cited from one of the apologetic tracts 
{Op. 13). The others are utilised in a similar man- 
ner in a later chapter of this book, on the teachings 
of Hubmaier. Only a few general remarks, there- 
fore, about this remarkable literary output of two 
years are in order here. 

As a man of letters, Hubmaier deserves to be 
ranked along with Erasmus and Melanchthon, — as 
a man of letters, be it noted, not as a scholar. He 
has no claim to be ranked among the first of the 
humanists — his taste was for theology rather than 
for the classics, and his learning was learning in the 
Scriptures. There he was the peer of the best 
scholars of his age. How thorough was his know- 
ledge of the original tongues, especially of the 
Hebrew, we have no means of determining; but 
somehow, whether from originals or from transla- 
tions, he had managed to acquire such a comprehen- 
sive and minute acquaintance with the Scriptures 
as would have made him a divine of mark in any 



156 Balthasar Hubmaier j> 52 6- 

age. And a ready memory kept these stores of 
knowledge ever at his command. He was never at 
a loss for a passage to support any contention of 
his own or to confute what he supposed to be an 
error of an adversary. 

But while this mastery of the Scriptures is cred- 
itable to Hubmaier, and entitles him to a certain 
consideration as a theologian, it is not his chief 
distinction. It is his power of expression, his sense 
of literary form, his art of putting things, that sets 
him alongside of Erasmus. His style, considered 
as mere Latinity, is faulty enough — indeed, every 
college student now knows that the Latinity of the 
great Erasmus himself, loudly as it was praised by 
unscholarly contemporaries, was very bad meas- 
ured by the classical standards. But as an instru- 
ment for expressing thought, Hiibmaier's Latin 
demands no criticism, and his use of it shows him 
one who would have been a clever literary craftsman 
in any language. In this literary characteristic, he 
has a note of modernity found in comparatively few 
of the writers of his age. 

The great bulk of Hiibmaier's writing, however, 
is in his mother tongue, the German then spoken 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 157 

in Bavaria. It differs somewhat, possibly for the 
worse, from the German of Luther, but is unspeak- 
ably better than the crabbed Swiss dialect in which 
Zwingli wrote many of his books. In the best of 
the tongues then spoken, Erasmus would have dis- 
dained to write even an ordinary letter, to say 
nothing of a book for the scholarly. But Hiibmaier 
did not write for the scholarly alone or chiefly ; he 
wrote for the common man, and he had the same 
kind of power with the masses that Luther showed 
in his address To the Christian Nobility of the Ger- 
man Nation. The tracts that poured forth from 
the Nikolsburg press are among the best specimens 
of religious literature produced by the sixteenth 
century — strong, eloquent, persuasive, vital. 

The ethical tone of Hiibmaier's writings also 
marks him for distinction among the writers of his 
age. He is scrupulously fair to his adversaries — 
always fair in intention, and usually fair in deed. 
He never charges misconduct and heresy upon his 
adversaries with that light-hearted carelessness of 
fact which is characteristic of his age and of most 
of its writers — of Luther and Zwingli, for example. 
And the difference in tone between his controversial 



i5 8 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 52 6- 

writings and those of the period is marvellous. To 
read an average pamphlet of Luther's, written to 
confute some adversary, — Wide?' Hans Wurst, for 
instance, or Contra Henricum Regem, — and then to 
turn to any writing of Hiibmaier's, is like escaping 
from the mephitic odours of a slum into a garden 
of spices. It is not merely that scurrilous abuse 
has been exchanged for courteous speech, — the 
whole atmosphere is different. There is a "sweet 
reasonableness" in Hiibmaier's attitude toward men 
and truth, a confident belief that he is right, but a 
genuine willingness to be instructed, which is rare 
in any age and was unique in his. Of a brilliant 
English scholar it was said, as his fitting epitaph, 
"He died learning"; and of Hiibmaier it may be 
said with equal truth that each year of his life saw 
him take a long stride forward, not only in know- 
ledge of the truth, but in that love that is not easily 
provoked and thinketh no evil. 

The success of Hiibmaier's work was considerably 
marred, if not seriously hindered, by controversies 
among the brethren themselves. The fact has 
already been recognised that there were consider- 
able differences among the Anabaptists from the 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 159 

first. One of the most fair-minded contemporary 
writers, Sebastian Franck, says of them that he had 
found no two who exactly agreed. But up to this 
time we may say of them, with some confidence, 
that if there was any tenet in addition to the bap- 
tism of believers on which they agreed it was the 
duty of non-resistance. 1 Many, but not all, drew 
from this the corollary that a Christian man could 
not lawfully be a magistrate, for the civil ruler 
must bear the sword and use it when necessary 
against evil-doers. This is especially true of the 
Swiss Anabaptists, with whom Hiibmaier had been 
most closely allied. 

But there was now coming into the Nikolsburg 
community a man who taught a contrary doctrine 
wherever he went. This was Hans Hut, a native 
of Franconia, and said to be of Waldensian descent, 
who, as early as 1521, had gotten himself into 
prison for refusing to have his babe baptised. On 
gaining his freedom, he went to Nurnberg, where he 
learned the trade of bookbinder and made the ac- 
quaintance of John Denck. A little later he was a 



1 The Schleitheim Confession is strong on this point, and Kessler's 
testimony is conclusive. Sabbata, i., p. 232. 



160 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 52 6- 

bookseller at Wittenberg, and when the Peasants' 
War broke out he made his way to Thomas Munzer 
at Miihlhausen. Captured at the battle of Franken- 
hausen, where Munzer and his peasants were over- 
thrown, he obtained his liberty by convincing his 
captors that he was in the camp as a book-peddler 
and not as a soldier. His plea may have been true, 
but there is plenty of evidence in his subsequent 
career that he had fully made his own the chilias- 
tic and anarchistic principles of Munzer. To the 
preaching of these he gave the rest of a stormy and 
checkered life. 

He joined Denck for a time in Augsburg, in the 
spring of 1526, and was baptised by this Anabaptist 
preacher, who had himself but a little before been 
baptised by Hiibmaier. Up to this time, though 
opposed to the baptism of infants, Hut was not 
definitely connected with the Anabaptists; hence- 
forth his labours were confined to that sect — or, 
more properly speaking, to one party among the 
Anabaptists. There had always been certain of 
these who rejected the tenet of non-resistance, to 
this extent at least — that the godly might use the 
sword against the ungodly, in setting up the king- 



1528] At Nikolsburg 161 

dom of God. In other words, there was always a 
chiliastic wing of Anabaptists, who believed that 
the kingdom of heaven comes not only with ob- 
servation but by violence. By these Hut was 
speedily hailed as a prophet, and had no hesitation 
in proclaiming himself to be such. He was a man 
of striking appearance and powerful personality, 
nearly illiterate but a master of popular eloquence. 
While really ignorant of the Scriptures, he had that 
glib command of such texts as bore on his own 
favourite themes which often passes with those who 
know still less for wide and deep Biblical knowledge. 
Wherever such a man went, he was sure to be a 
firebrand. 

Such he proved to be in Nikolsburg, where he 
made his appearance toward the close of the year 
1526, or early in 1527. He proclaimed that the 
day of the Lord was at hand. He was the prophet 
sent by God to warn the ungodly that their over- 
throw was near. To the saints he announced that 
their mission was that of a chosen people — to root 
out the wicked who then ruled the world as the 
Israelites destroyed the people of Canaan. The 
time of the persecution of the saints was nearly at 



1 62 Balthasar Hubmaier [1526- 

an end; the two-edged sword of God's vengeance 
would soon be put in their hands. It was a curious 
feature of the teaching of these fanatical Anabap- 
tists, that while they denied the right of the sword 
to magistrates and denounced all war as "carnal," 
they believed that when Christ should begin his 
millennial reign it would be not merely the right 
but the duty of his subjects to take up the sword 
and put the ungodly to slaughter. 

Even before Hut's coming, a small party of 
fanatical Anabaptists had found refuge in Nikols- 
burg, holding views differing from his, but har- 
monising with them wondrous well — a remnant, 
perhaps, of Munzer's following, who escaped the 
slaughter of Miihlhausen and wandered from place 
to place until they reached Moravia. The leading 
spirit among these was Jacob Widemann, and his 
pet vagary was community of goods among Christ- 
ian brethren as a cardinal principle of the gospel. 
He had taught an extreme form of non-resistance, 
insisting that Christians are forbidden to use the 
sword in self-defence or as magistrates, and, as a 
corollary to this, that Christians ought not to pay 
taxes, since these are used for the support of 



1528] At Nikolsburg 163 

governments and the waging of war. He and his 
followers called taxes "blood money." Of the 
antecedents of Widemann — who was popularly 
known by the nickname of "One-eyed Jacob" — 
little is known, except the statement of an old 
chronicle that he came from the land of Ens (Salz- 
burg), and had first made Hut's acquaintance at 
Augsburg. 

Widemann and Hut speedily joined forces. 
Widemann and his adherents found little difficulty 
in grafting Hut's doctrine of the sword, as the ex- 
clusive perquisite of the saints, upon their previous 
tenet of non-resistance ; while Hut and his followers 
were not slow to perceive that if the end of the age 
was at hand there was little use in private property. 
There was a natural affinity between the two 
parties ■ — and, besides, they both found themselves 
confronted by the same formidable opponent, 
Hiibmaier. 

He was too well versed in the Scriptures, and too 
well ballasted with common sense, to be carried 
away by this fanaticism. He had never held to 
community of goods, though this charge had been 
falsely made against him, as well as against certain of 



1 64 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 52 6- 

the Swiss Anabaptists. But this was when Zwingli 
and his helpers were more anxious to discredit 
the Anabaptists than to discover and tell the pre- 
cise truth about them ; and Hubmaier had con- 
sistently denied the imputation. He was in favour 
of such community of goods, he said, as prevailed 
in the church at Jerusalem, when not one of them 
said that aught of the things which he possessed 
was his own, but sold their lands and houses that 
distribution might be made to those who had need. 
So, he held and taught, Christian believers should 
hold all property subject to the needs of the 
brotherhood, available for the assistance of needy 
brothers — a very different thing from what is gen- 
erally meant by communism. Nor had he ever 
taught the extreme doctrine of non-resistance, for- 
bidden Christians to be magistrates, or to pay their 
taxes. Above all, he had no chiliastic delusions, 
he had proclaimed no wild exegesis of the prophetic 
writings, he had not taught his followers to look 
for the immediate second coming of Christ and the 
setting up of his millennial kingdom. 

It is not hard to understand the fascination that 
these teachings of Hut and Widemann had for a 



1528] At Nikolsburg 165 

despised and down-trodden people. To have it 
apparently proved from Scripture that the time was 
at hand when Christ would appear in the heavens, 
set up his kingdom on earth and rule with his saints 
a thousand years, and that all enemies should be 
speedily put under his feet, was fitted to carry 
away the ignorant and simple-minded, and even 
some of sufficient learning to have known better. 
Or, if any have difficulty in comprehending how 
ideas so absurd (to them) should find so easy and 
so wide acceptance, let them recall the reception 
given to precisely similar teaching in one of the 
most intelligent communities of our own land, no 
longer ago than fifty years. William Miller and 
Hans Hut were theological twins, and there is a 
most instructive similarity in the character, recep- 
tion, and results of their teaching. Like Miller, 
Hut was rash enough to set an exact day for the 
ending of the old order and the coming of the new 
kingdom — the second anniversary of the battle of 
Frankenhausen. When May 15, 1527, came and 
the world still stood, he was, again like Miller, quite 
undismayed by the failure of his prediction, and 
proceeded to make another with equally cheerful 



166 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 52 6- 

confidence, this time fixing the catastrophe for the 
day of the summer feast, Whitsunday, 1529. Many 
so completely believed him, in spite of his first fail- 
ure, as to forsake their homes, sell their goods, and 
throng him from place to place, awaiting the great 
day of their Lord's coming. 

Of Hut's preaching during this time, one choice 
specimen has been preserved : 

" Then [shortly before the end of the age] all the 
godless will be destroyed, and that by true Christians; 
if their number [the true Christians] shall be sufficient, 
they will go from Germany to Switzerland, and to Hun- 
gary, and have no regard tp princes and lords. Then 
some thousands of them shall assemble, and every one 
shall sell his goods and take the money with him, so as 
to be sure, meantime, of food; then they shall wait until 
the Turk comes. 1 If the Turk fails to strike down any 
of the princes, monks, priests, nobles, or knights, they 
will then be stricken and slain by the little company of 
true Christians. But if the godless shall march against 
the Turks, then the true Christians shall remain at home; 
but, if many of the princes or many of the lords remain 
at home too, and do not march against the Turks, they 
shall be struck down a little while afterwards. Then it 
will come to pass that the true Christians will have no 
one, but God alone, and God himself will be and remain 
their lord." 2 



1 This and what follows is an allusion to an impending invasion of 
Austria by the Turks, which indeed happened, not in 1527, but two 
years later. 2 Quoted by Hoschek, ii., 231, 232. 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 167 

The schism thus produced among the Anabap- 
tists and the disturbances caused by Hut's preach- 
ing became very serious. Some of Hiibmaier's 
most prominent disciples were carried away by this 
fanaticism, including Oswald Glaidt and other 
preachers at Nikolsburg. Even Goschel seems to 
have gone over to Hut; of all the former evangel- 
ists, Spitalmaier is the only prominent one who is 
known to have stood by Hiibmaier without waver- 
ing. Something was needful to be done to check 
the movement, and first of all a conference or dis- 
putation was tried. The leaders met in Bergen, 
but the discussion left them farther apart than be- 
fore. Then the Lichtenstein nobles intervened, 
and summoned all the preachers to the castle at 
Nikolsburg, where the whole subject was thor- 
oughly threshed out in their presence. By this 
time the Nikolsburg preachers had all seen more 
clearly whither Hut's teaching was tending, and 
they joined Hiibmaier in defending the authority 
of civil government, its right to bear the sword, and 
the duty of Christians to pay taxes for its support. 
Whether the question of the community of goods 
was also discussed is not clear. Hut stoutly 



1 68 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1526- 

maintained the teachings that he had been propa- 
gating to be the truth and the plain sense of the 
Scriptures, and utterly refused to yield. The re- 
sult was that Lord Lichtenstein detained Hut as a 
prisoner in the castle. 1 

As this action of Lichtenstein was apparently 
approved by Hiibmaier, the accusation was at once 
brought against him, and has been repeated to this 
day, that he thus proved himself an inconsistent 
advocate of religious liberty, and was a persecutor 
when he had the opportunity. The action of the 
ruler, however, seems quite justified by the facts 
as we know them. Hut was plainly teaching sedi- 
tion and murder — sedition as a present duty, 
murder as a duty in the near future. No principle 
of religious liberty requires that a government shall 
leave such a firebrand to go about in the com- 
munity. There was so much excitement in the 
city following this action of the Prince, and so 
vehement charges were made against him for this 
action, and the conduct of the other preachers was 
so violently questioned, that Hiibmaier was con- 



1 The insinuation of Hoschek (ii., 234), that the intention was 
" perhaps to have burned him at the stake," is quite gratuitous. 



i 52 8] At Nikolsburg 169 

strained to call the whole church together and make 
them a long oration on the matter. The other 
preachers stood by him, and eventually the church 
seem to have been satisfied that the proper course 
had been pursued. In the meantime Hut made 
good his escape from the castle. One suspects that 
the Prince was not averse to this solution of the 
matter; at any rate, some friendly hands let the 
preacher down with a rope over the walls by 
night. 

Hut made his way back to the city of Augsburg, 
but this town had ceased to be a safe refuge for 
Anabaptists. Many were arrested and imprisoned, 
among them Hut, against whom the authorities 
had been previously warned by the council of 
Niirnberg. While imprisoned in the tower, he is 
said to have suffered severe tortures. His death 
was mysterious. He was found one day in his 
cell, badly burned and in a dying condition. An 
old chronicle says that the careless jailer left a light 
near the straw, which took fire. The enemies 
of the Anabaptists circulated a story that he at- 
tempted to escape by setting fire to his cell and was 
fatally burned in the attempt. It is impossible to 



17° Balthasar Hubmaier [i 52 6- 

determine which account is true; but what seems 
to be beyond question is that his dead or moribund 
body was hastily taken into court and ordered 
to be burned ; and at sound of the alarum-bell, his 
body was carried to the gibbet beyond the walls, 
and there burnt to ashes. 1 

Widemann, as the less dangerous man of the two, 
seems not to have been imprisoned or otherwise 
troubled. He continued to lead the party opposed 
to Hubmaier, and, in spite of the latter's opposi- 
tion, the sentiment in favour of community of 
goods continued to grow in Nikolsburg, and ulti- 
mately this led to the division of the church and 
the emigration of the communistic element, but not 
during Hiibmaier's lifetime. A more immediate 
result was the composition and printing of the 
treatise On the Sword, in which Hubmaier set forth 
his ideas on civil government with the utmost clear- 
ness, fulness, and frankness. 

This was the last, and in some respects the most 
important, of his Nikolsburg pamphlets. It is a 
less ambitious performance than his two treatises 

1 Newman, in his History of Anti-P edobaptism , says December 7, 
1527, but the Anabaptist chronicles make the year 1529. Beck, 
Gesckichts-Bicclier, p. 34, cf. p. 50. 



i 5 28] At Nikolsburg 171 

on the Freedom of the Will, but it has a practical 
value that does not always pertain to academic 
discussions in theology. The existence of the 
Nikolsburg church, and the permanence of the 
reformation in Moravia were seriously threatened. 
The division in the church pointed towards its 
speedy disintegration, unless the strife provoked by 
Hut and Widemann could be ended. What was 
perhaps more serious was that, if the Moravian 
nobles should become convinced that the majority 
of Anabaptists sympathised with the fanatical 
ravings of Hut, they would look upon the entire 
sect as seditious and dangerous persons, to be sup- 
pressed and even punished, rather than encouraged. 
This was the charge that had everywhere been 
brought against the Anabaptists by their enemies, 
and at that day it was generally believed outside 
of Moravia. Recent German investigators, like 
Cornelius and Keller, have done much to free the 
Anabaptists from these (in the main) undeserved 
imputations. But still more recently, certain 
English writers, 1 themselves advocates of modern 

1 Richard Heath, Anabaptism, from its Rise at Zwickau to its 
Fall at Munster, 1521-1536 ; E. Belfort Bax, Rise and Fall of the 
Anabaptists. 



i7 2 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i S2 &- 

socialistic theories, have represented the whole Ana- 
baptist movement as a splendid but unfortunate at- 
tempt to realise a complete socialistic programme, 
a radical overturning of existing institutions, almost 
an entire anticipation of the teachings of Lassalle 
and Marx. 

While the motives of the recent writers are far 
more laudable than those of their predecessors, the 
result is almost precisely the same. The contem- 
porary writers wished to load the Anabaptists with 
obloquy; their English historians wish to crown 
the Anabaptists with honour, as the first to attempt 
the application of a theory yet destined to be the 
salvation of mankind ; but in either case the Ana- 
baptists are equally misrepresented, and the opin- 
ions of a few are attributed to the whole. The 
misrepresentation is most serious when the violent 
measures advocated by Hut and afterwards put in 
practice at Miinster are represented either as the 
convictions of the majority or the legitimate conse- 
quences of the views prevalent in the body. 

It was, therefore, to neutralise the effects of this 
misrepresentation throughout Moravia, no less than 
to win to sounder ideas concerning the teaching of 



1528] At Nikolsburg 173 

the Scriptures the erring Anabaptists themselves, 
that this treatise On the Sword was composed. As 
the entire document is given in the Appendix, it is 
necessary to do no more here than call attention to 
its chief characteristics, and briefly summarise the 
argument. And, first of all, it is worth while to 
note carefully its tone and temper. Hiibmaier 
found himself in practically the same dilemma that 
confronted Luther a few years earlier, at the time 
of the peasants' revolt. The peasants appealed to 
Luther's writings as affording justification for their 
claims, if not for their deeds, and the Catholic 
writers hastened to charge upon him the moral re- 
sponsibility of the revolt. If the princes and rulers 
of Germany had taken this view of the case, no 
doubt there would have been a speedy end of 
Luther's reformation. What did Luther do under 
these trying circumstances? He lost his head com- 
pletely, and instead of trying by expostulation 
and argument from the Scriptures, for which he 
professed so great respect, to win the peasants 
from their errors and bring them back to their 
loyalty and obedience, he hastily composed and 
printed his pamphlet, Against the Murdering and 



174 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 52 6- 

Robbing Bands of the Peasants. l The violence and 
coarseness of the abuse that he poured upon the 
peasants, — the justice of whose cause he had ex- 
plicitly approved a short time before, 2 — his eager 
advocacy of a policy of extermination by the 
princes, the bloodthirsty exhortations to the nobles 
to show no compassion, but to smite as long as 
they could move a muscle, disgusted and discon- 
certed his own friends and closest adherents. Ever 
since that crisis, admirers of Luther have been com- 
pelled to apologise for and extenuate his conduct 
as best they might. But Hiibmaier makes no such 
demands upon his biographer. His tractate, On 
the Sword, is temperate in language and thoroughly 
Christian in its tone. He said nothing for which 
he need blush or we apologise. No contrast could 
be greater. 

In truth, we see Hiibmaier here at his best as a con- 
troversialist. The tractate shows great familiarity with 
the Scriptures and clear understanding of their meaning, 

1 Luther's German Works, Erlangen -ed., xxiv., 287 sq. Walch 
ed., xvi., 91 sq. This appears in an English version in Historical 
Leaflets, No. 4, edited by Henry C. Vedder, Crozer Theological 
Seminary, 1901. 

2 Luther's German Works, Erlangen ed., xxiv., 257 sq. Walch 
ed., xv., 58 sq. An English translation may be found in Michelet's 
Life of L^uther (Bohn ed.), pp. 161-180. 



i S 28] At Nikolsburg 175 

shrewd appreciation of both the strength and the weak- 
ness of his adversaries, good sense, tact and humour. 
He cites one after another the fifteen texts on which the 
opponents of magistracy chiefly relied: John xviii., $6\ 
Matt. xxvi. ? 53,54; Luke ix., 54, 55 ; xii., 13,14; Matt. 
v., 40; 1 Cor. vi., 7, 8; Matt, xviii., 15-17; Matt, v., 
38, 39, and Luke vi., 29; Eph. vi., 14-17; 2 Cor. x., 4, 
5; Matt, v., 43-48; v., 21; Luke xxii., 25, 26; Rom. 
xii., 19, 20; Eph. iv., 15, and Col. i., 18. Each of 
these texts is subjected to a thorough and candid ex- 
amination. Hiibmaier here appears to great advantage 
as an interpreter of Scripture. His exegesis is thor- 
oughly good; there is hardly a word that one would 
wish to see changed; and he points out, with equal 
kindness and distinctness, the errors of his brethren. 
These had been caused by a too rigid literalism of inter- 
pretation, and a refusal (or at least a failure) to compare 
Scripture with Scripture. 

It is by this method clearly shown that Paul speaks 
of a twofold sword, the spiritual and the temporal. 
The former is the word of God, with which the Christian 
is to overcome his adversaries. The latter is borne by 
the magistrate, for the protection of the innocent and 
the punishment of the evil doer. Governments are of 
God; the magistrate is his minister. When Jesus for- 
bade his followers to use the sword, he spoke to men 
who had no right to use it — they had not been elected or 
appointed for that purpose. He refused to be a judge 
— that was not his office — but he did not condemn those 
whose business it was to judge. He that takes the sword 
without authority shall perish by the sword, but not he 
that bears the sword according to God's command and 
order. A Christian ought to suffer wrong rather than 



176 Balthasar Hubmaier [1526- 

bring a suit to right himself, but the magistrate and 
judge are bound to protect him from wrong and to 
redress his wrongs unasked. Excommunication and 
the sword have nothing in common: one is a spiritual 
penalty, to be imposed by the church; the other a 
physical penalty, to be inflicted by the magistrate. 
The magistrate does not hate an enemy when he pun- 
ishes; his sword is a good rod and scourge of God. In 
short, the Scriptures, fairly interpreted throughout, do 
not condemn magistracy, but sustain it. 

With the departure of Hut, the chiliastic excite- 
ment at Nikolsburg declined, and the teaching of 
the extreme doctrines against which this treatise 
was aimed ceased. How far Hiibmaier's arguments 
were effectual in promoting a better understanding 
of the Scriptures among the Moravian Anabaptists 
can only be conjectured. Whether because of his 
success, or for other reasons, controversy regarding 
the sword rapidly decreased, and the only principle 
that remained as a cause of division from 1528 on- 
ward was the community of goods. On this matter 
Widemann successfully maintained his ground, with 
a following constantly increasing in numbers and 
weight. It is possible that if Hubmaier had con- 
tinued his active labours a few years longer, he 
might have won a victory all along the line; but 







O z 

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u- E 



1528] At Nikolsburg 177 

the publication of this treatise, the preface of which 
is dated June 24, 1527, marks the close of his minis- 
try at Nikolsburg. A few weeks later he was a 
prisoner, on his way to Vienna, where he was soon 
to meet his death. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TEACHINGS OF HUBMAIER 
1524-1527 

A PREACHER of the gospel and for the most 
** part a writer on practical questions, not a 
speculative theologian, Hubmaier nevertheless held 
a well-reasoned system of theology. Of his writings 
that resemble a systematic statement of his beliefs, 
one 1 is no more than an amplification — it can hardly 
be called an exposition — of the Apostle's Creed, 
while the other 2 is a catechism. His only other 
writings that may be called theological, in the strict 
sense, are his two treatises on the Freedom of the 
Will. Elsewhere in his published works he fre- 
quently discussed theological questions, but in an 
incidental and fragmentary way, as might be ex- 
pected of one whom choice and circumstances had 



1 The Twelve Articles of Christian Belief, Op. 18. 

2 The Table of Christian Doctrine, Op. n. 

178 



[1524-1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 179 

combined to make preacher and reformer rather 
than thinker and doctor. He was not by any 
means a religious opportunist; he did not lack 
definite theological ideas because he restrained 
himself from giving them expression. To his ap- 
prehension, truth presented itself in sharp and clear 
outlines; it was a well-defined body; he did not re- 
frain from systematic statement of doctrine because 
his ideas were hazy, or because he was indifferent, 
but because other matters seemed to him of more 
pressing importance. In times more quiet he would 
have given more attention to theology. 

We shall not waste time, then, if we undertake 
to dissect out of Htibmaier's writings a skeleton of 
doctrine, which underlies all his teaching and gives 
it consistency, coherence, and firmness. And we 
shall do well to begin at the point where he himself 
began ; for he was led to his clear views of Scripture 
truth, as we have seen, by the independent study 
of the Scriptures themselves. Prior to 1522 he had 
been content with the scholastic theology of which 
his old master and friend, Eck, continued to the 
last to be so ardent and eminent an exponent. 
The authority of the Fathers and great doctors of 



180 Balthasar Hubmaier [1524- 

the Church was sufficient for the master, but the 
disciple was led by study of the Bible to the rejec- 
tion of dogma and Fathers, and indeed to an 
entirely different estimation of the Scriptures them- 
selves. As a Catholic he had always, in a vague 
and careless and ignorant way, regarded these as 
the foundation of the faith, but his personal ac- 
quaintance with them gave him a new apprehension 
alike of their spiritual value and of their religious 
authority. Thenceforth, the rejection of all human 
authority in religion, and of every usage of human 
origin as well, and the substitution therefor of the 
faith and order of the Scriptures, seemed to him 
the only possible and defensible course for Christian 
men to take. 

" We should inquire of the Scriptures," he says in one 
of his Dialogues, 1 " and not of the Church, for God will 
have from us only his law, his will, not our wrong heads 
or what seems good to us. God is more concerned with 
obedience to his will than with all our offerings and 
self-invented church usages. . . . Thou knowest, 
Zwingli, that the Holy Scripture is such a complete, com- 
pacted, true, infallible, eternally immortal speech, that 
the least letter or tittle of it cannot pass away." 



A Conversation of Balthasar Hubmaier, Op. 10. 



1527] Teachings of Hubmaier 181 

And he will by no means admit that some things 
are essential and other things unessential: 

" For an earnest command demands an earnest obedi- 
ence and following. ' Verily, verily, I say unto you,' 
Christ has not used such precious words for a matter 
that may be done or left undone, as each pious Christian 
can see for himself. But it is just the way of human 
wisdom to hold as of least weight that which God highly 
regards or commands." x 

The most explicit and elaborate statement of this 
supremacy of the authority of Scripture is contained 
in the already quoted theses in which Hubmaier 
challenges his master Eck to debate. 2 But, after 
all, his belief on this subject is shown less by any 
of his formal declarations than by his constant 
attitude towards the Scriptures, which is one of 
reverence and obedience. His writings contain 
little but quotations from the Bible, — exegesis and 
exposition. His continual inquiry, as each point is 
discussed, is, What do the Scriptures say about 
this? And his treatment of the text is candid. 
His exegesis is nearly always right — modern 
scholarship finds little to quarrel with in his inter- 



1 Gi'ound and Reason, Op. 16. 

2 Supra, p. 89 sq. 



182 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

pretations — and even when he is wrong he is hon- 
estly, not perversely, wrong. There are few writers 
in the history of the Church who have searched 
the Scriptures with a greater zeal to discover their 
teaching, or have come to the study with a more 
open mind, or who have bent fewer texts from their 
plain meaning to support a favourite theory. 

The method of interpretation avowed and prac- 
tised by Hiibmaier is simple in the extreme. It is 
to take a plain text in its plain meaning, applying 
to its exegesis the principles of grammar and ordin- 
ary common sense. In only one case does he yield 
to the tendency to allegorise, and in that case his 
exegesis is worthy of reproduction as a curiosity, 
though it has no other value. He is attempting to 
prove from Scripture that the fall of the body is 
irrecoverable and fatal, while that of the soul is half 
recoverable and innocuous, and he does it thus : 

" Adam, the image {figur) of the soul, as Eve is the 
image of the body, would rather not have eaten of the 
fruit of the tree. He was not tempted by the serpent, 
but Eve was tempted. He knew that the speech of the 
serpent contradicted the word of God, and yet he chose 
to eat of the fruit against his own conscience (gwissen), 
so as not to grieve his rib and his body, Eve, but he 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 183 

himself would rather not have yielded. Since he then 
obeyed Eve rather than God, he lost the knowledge of 
good and evil, so that he cannot will or choose the good, 
and cannot reject or renounce the evil. Consequently 
nothing pleased him except that which pleased his Eve, 
that is, his body." l 

Emphatic and absolute was his repudiation of the 
Romanist's contention that an infallible interpreter 
(the Church) is necessary, or else the Scriptures 
will lead men astray. The Church is only the col- 
lected Fathers and doctors, and if these individually 
do not know the Scriptures they do not and cannot 
collectively know them. "They well know," he 
says, "that a single woman — such as the pious 
Christian woman Argula von Stauff — knows more 
of the divine word than such red-capped ones will 
ever see and lay hold of." The humblest believer 
is able to understand the Scriptures, so much at any 
rate as is necessary to salvation, and it is his duty 
to learn this by his own study of the word, not to take 
it at second-hand from anybody. The possibility 
of error in thus interpreting the divine word is ad- 
mitted, but this is due for the most part to the ob- 
scurity or brevity of certain passages. The remedy 



1 Freedom of the Will, Op. 23. 



1 84 Balthasar Hubmaier 



.1524- 



is to recognise that Scripture can be interpreted 
only by Scripture. If we put beside these obscure 
or brief passages other passages on the same subject, 
and bind them together like wax candles, and light 
them all at once, then the clear and pure splendour 
of the Scriptures must shine forth. 1 In this way* 
the believer who surrenders himself to the guidance 
of the Spirit of God will be led into all the truth. 

In Theology proper — the doctrine of God — Hiib- 
maier was orthodox according to the standards of 
Nicsea and Chalcedon. There is no trace in his 
writings of the anti-Trinitarian theories taught by 
Denck and attributed to Hatzer. 3 He declares his 
belief in God, the Father Almighty, the highest 
good, all-wise and all-merciful — his wisdom and 
power shown in his creation and ruling of the world, 
his mercy in the sending of his only begotten Son. 
This Son, Jesus Christ, is true God and man, con- 
ceived of the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, the pure 
and ever chaste Virgin ; and the Son of the living 
God thus became man that through him we might 



1 Simple Explanation of the words, " This is my Body." Op. 9. 

2 The book said to contain Hatzer's heretical views was burned by 
Capito, and it is impossible now to judge whether the accusation 
was just or not. 



1527] Teachings of Hubmaier 185 

become children of God. After his passion and 
death, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, ascended 
into heaven, and sits at the right hand of his 
Father, "in the same power, glory and praise with 
the Father, as our only intercessor, mediator and 
propitiator before the Father. There he sits, 
mighty and strong, to help all believers who put 
their trust in him, and it is in vain to seek another 
Advocate." 1 This is the longest single passage 
in Hiibmaier's writings on the subject of Christ's 
divinity, and he puts into it matters commonly 
discussed under the head of Soteriology, as well as 
those that immediately pertain to Christ's relation 
to the Father. Of the Holy Spirit he only says 
that he "proceeds from the Father and the Son, 
and yet with them is the only and true God, who 
sanctifies all things, and without him is nothing 
holy," and who teaches believers all truth. 

The election of grace is not formally discussed in 
any writing, but is often touched upon in the 
treatises on the Freedom of the Will. There seems 
to be some confusion of ideas, however, and it is 
tolerably plain that the subject had not been 



1 Twelve Articles, Op. \\ 



186 Balthasar Hubmaier [i S24 - 

thought through with the thoroughness characteris- 
tic of the Institutes of Calvin. It is indeed only 
fair to bear in mind that until that wonderful theo- 
logical treatise appeared, the Reformation theology 
had not become clear and consistent on this matter. 
Where even Melanchthon hesitated and stumbled, 
we need not be surprised that another's utterances 
should be equivocal. Hubmaier teaches that all 
things take place according to the will of God, but 
a distinction is drawn between the "benevolent" 
and the "permissive" will. The benevolent will of 
God is the will of his mercy — he wills all men to be 
saved; the permissive will is that those who will 
not hear Christ he leaves to the consequences of 
their refusal. If God has specially elected some to 
salvation, this is a secret decree, and it is vain for 
us to probe the divine secrets. It is blasphemous 
to maintain that men sin and are lost in fulfilment 
of a divine decree, and not of their own choice. 
This view he sustained by exposition of the Scrip- 
tures, and he did not shrink from those that seem 
opposed to his position : 

" ' God has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and 
whom he will he hardens' (Rom. ix., 18). These 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 187 

words are the utterances of the almighty and secret will 
of God, which is pledged to no one, nor anything, and 
therefore he can without injustice have mercy on whom 
he will, or condemn whom he will. This will the school- 
men call the ' omnipotent ' will, a will that no one can 
resist. Yes, God has the power and the right to make 
of us a vessel, either for honour or dishonour, without 
our being able to reply and say, ' Why hast thou made 
us so? ' Besides this will, however, we find another re- 
vealed will of God, according to which God wills that all 
men should be redeemed and come to the knowledge of 
the truth. Christ himself has plainly made known this 
will in the words, ' For God so loved the world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in 
him might not perish, but have eternal life ' (John iii., 
16). ' He suffered for our sins, and not for our sins 
only, but for the sins of the whole world. He is also 
the true light, that lights every man that comes into the 
world. To them that received him he gave power to be- 
come sons of God.' Therefore he has commanded us to 
preach the gospel to every creature, that every one who 
receives it, who believes and is baptised may be saved. 
Hence it follows that according to his revealed will God 
hardens, darkens or condemns no one and nobody, un- 
less it be one who of his own will and wickedness will be 
hardened, darkened and condemned, and that is those 
people to whom Christ comes as to his own and they re- 
ceive him not. When, therefore, it is said in the Scrip- 
tures that no one can resist God's will, the reference is 
not to the revealed, but to the secret will of God. But 
any one who does not observe this distinction gets into 
many difficulties and errors. 

"The revealed will of God the schoolmen call the 



i88 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

' ordered ' will, not as though the secret will were with- 
out order, for everything that God wills and does is right 
and good, but he himself is subject to no rule, but his 
will itself is the rule of all things. The schoolmen call 
that will ordered, because it is fulfilled according to the 
word of Scripture, in which he has revealed his will; 
and so we speak also of the ' secret ' and ' revealed ' 
will of God, not as though there were a double will in 
God, but the Scripture speaks so in order to accommo- 
date itself to human weakness, that we may know that 
although God is almighty and can do all things by his 
power, yet he will not deal with us poor creatures ac- 
cording to his omnipotence, but according to his mercy, 
which he has shown by his Son. God wills that all men 
should be saved (i Tim. ii., 4). Who then can resist 
the will of God ? ' Nay, but, O man, who art thou that 
repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to 
him who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? ' 
(Rom. ix., 20). If then God wills that all men should 
be saved, it must be done according to his will, and 
therefore the question is whether we will or not." ' 

It will not seem entirely inexplicable to one 
who has read carefully this extract, that Hubmaier 
should be claimed as an advocate of their theologies, 
with equal confidence, by both Arminians and Cal- 
vinists. In the tenet that afterwards became the 
shibboleth of Calvinism, an atonement limited to 
the elect, the sympathies of Hubmaier would cer- 



Freedoni of the Will, Op. 23; Hoschek, ii., 154. 



i 5 2 7 ] Teachings of Hubmaier 189 

tainly seem to be plainly with the Arminians. He 
would, however, find himself in congenial company 
among those who to-day call themselves "mod- 
erate" Calvinists. One thing is certain, he was 
not an antinomian : 

11 Grace comes to us, not from us, so that no one can 
boast except of the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Whoever maintains that God will have sin, does not 
know what sin is. If any one says, ' If God did not will 
it, I would not sin,' I affirm, on the contrary, that God 
does not will that we sin. We set ourselves in opposition 
to his revealed will. We ought not to sin in order that 
the mercy of God may be more richly displayed, but we 
ought not to sin that we may not make ourselves un- 
worthy of mercy, and expose ourselves to the penalties 
of divine justice. 1 

". . . The people have learned only two things, 
without bettering their lives: the first, in that they say, 
' We believe, faith saves us ' ; the second, ' By ourselves 
we can do no good.' Now both are true. But under 
the cloak of these half-truths all wickedness, unfaithful- 
ness and unrighteousness has won the upper hand, and 
brotherly discipline in the meantime has grown more 
cold in many than before in a thousand years. Yea it is 
true and is fulfilled, the common proverb: ' The older 
the worse.' ' No better, but much worse.' ' The older 
the colder..' ' The longer the world stands the worse it 
is.' This stroke we must suffer from the godless, but 
it cries to God that we suffer this because of our own 



Freedom of the Will, Op. 23. 



190 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1524- 

guilt. For we would all be Christians and evangelical 
by taking wives and eating flesh, never sacrificing, never 
fasting, by blasphemy, usury, lying, deceit, oppression, 
trickery, compulsion, driving, stealing, robbery, burning, 
playing, dancing, banqueting, idleness, whoring, adul- 
tery, seduction of girls, tyranny, strangling, killing. The 
lightness and freedom of the flesh sits on the topmost 
bench; on the uppermost seat the pride of this world 
reigns, sings and triumphs in all things. No Christian 
shines forth among all men. Brotherly love and faith is 
wholly extinguished, and all this, sad to say, takes place 
under the seeming of the gospel. 

" For, as soon as you say to such evangelical people, 
' It is written, brother, ' ' Cease from evil and do good, ' ' ' 
he immediately answers, ' It is written, " We cannot do 
anything good." All things take place by the destiny 
of God and of necessity. ' They mean by this that it is 
permitted them to sin. If you say further, ' It is writ- 
ten, "Those that do evil shall go into eternal fire," ' 
straightway a girdle made of fig-leaves is found to cover 
their crime, and they say, * It is written, " Faith alone 
saves, and not our works." ' With such subtleties we are 
nevertheless good evangelicals, and know how to quote, 
flourish and bounce around in a masterly way with the 
holy Scriptures — as the friends of Job, yea as the devil 
(Matt, iv.) — for the defence of our freedom and the 
sauciness of the flesh." 1 

To comprehend Hubmaier's Anthropology, it is 
necessary to understand at the outset that he be- 
lieves the Scriptures to teach clearly the trichoto- 

1 On Brotherly Discipline, Op. 21. 



i 5 27] Teachings of Hubmaier 191 

mous nature of man. Here for once he falls into 
an exegesis that is puerile. " And I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blame- 
less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ " (1 
Thess. v., 23) is his favourite text. And he does 
not hesitate to argue from this that the spirit is 
in different case from the body and soul since the 
fall, because the apostle says here "the whole 
spirit," but does not say "the whole soul " or "the 
whole body," for what has once fallen and been 
broken to pieces is no longer whole ! It was not 
Hubmaier's fault but his misfortune that he was not 
a Greek scholar, 1 yet a glance at the Vulgate from 
which he generally quoted should have been quite 
sufficient to show the untenableness of such exe- 
gesis: ut integer spiritus vester et anima et corpus 
sine querela in adventu Domini nostri Jesu Christi 
servetur — this, equally with the Greek, should be 
rendered, "may your spirit and soul and body be 
preserved whole, without blame, at the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

This is a bad beginning, and what follows is not 



1 It is claimed in his behalf that he knew both Greek and Hebrew, 
but it is certain that he made little or no use of the original texts. 



19 2 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

much better. Adam, says our author, was created 
pure, and entirely free in the choice of good and 
evil, but when he sinned he lost this freedom, not 
only for himself, but for all his descendants. But 
fully to understand what this implies, we need to 
distinguish a threefold will: the will of the body, 
the will of the soul, the will of the spirit. The 
body became by Adam's sin corrupted, so that it 
can do nothing but sin. The soul also participated 
in this fall: it became so wounded and sick that it 
cannot of itself choose the good and resist the evil. 
The spirit participated in the effects of the fall, 
since it is a prisoner in the corrupted body, but it 
did not participate in the offence of Adam, for it 
did not yield to the sin of disobedience. In his 
catechism, where this question is of necessity more 
briefly discussed, there is a summary of his funda- 
mental doctrine regarding human nature that is 
admirable in its point and clearness : 

' ' To sum up then : God made us free in body, soul 
and spirit. This freedom and goodness became, by the 
disobedience of Adam, captive in the spirit, wounded in 
the soul, and corrupted in the body. Hence, we are 
conceived and born in sin, children of wrath. If we are 
to become again free in spirit, sound in soul, uninjured 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 193 

in body, in consequence of the fall, it must be through 
a new birth, without which, Christ says, we cannot enter 
the kingdom of God." * 

It is evident that what Hiibmaier sought was 
escape from the paralysing Augustinianism of 
Luther; and he attempted to work out a theory 
that should make a reality and not an empty form 
of the preaching of the gospel. This he believed 
he had secured by making the spirit an unwilling 
partner in the sin of Adam, and therefore exempted 
in a measure from the results of sin. Hence, while 
the will of the body and the will of the soul are 
no longer free, the will of the spirit is free. It is 
only so that deliverance from his sinful state is pos- 
sible to man, through the hearing of the gospel, as 
he goes on to argue at length : 

" 'But the natural man receives not the things of the 
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet 
he himself is judged by no man ' (i Cor. ii., 14, 15). 
Here you see, Christian reader, the perfection of the 
human spirit, since it judges all things, even the wounds 
of the soul. Likewise you see that the body and the 
soul are severely wounded, and that the spirit only has 



1 Ein Christennliche Leertafel, Op. 11. 
13 



194 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

preserved the hereditary righteousness in which it was 
created from the beginning. In relation to man who is 
redeemed by Christ, we find that the body is still 
wretched, but that the spirit is joyful, willing and de- 
voted to every good thing, yet the soul is sad and 
troubled because it stands between the body and the 
spirit and does not know which way to turn, as though 
blind and not understanding heavenly things by natural 
faculties. But when it is awakened by the word of God 
from the Heavenly Father, and when it is encouraged 
and led through much consolation, and is held by the 
Son of God and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, it dis- 
criminates between good and bad, has its lost freedom 
again, can also freely and willingly obey the Spirit, and 
will choose the good as once when it was in Paradise. 

"All this the word of God effects in the soul. There- 
fore David exclaims: ' He sent his word and made them 
whole' (Ps. cvii., 20). Therefore Christ says: 'If ye 
continue in my word, ye are truly my disciples; and ye 
will know the truth and the truth will make you free ' 
[John viii., 31, 32]. Therefore let every one who has 
ears to hear, hear that we have become free again by the 
word and truth sent to us from God through Christ. In 
this way real health and liberty are restored to man again. 
Now, too, the soul is free and can obey either the spirit 
or the body, but if it obeys the body it becomes body, 
if the spirit, spirit. Further, it can command the body, 
and tame it to make it go into the fire for the sake of 
Christ's name with the soul and spirit, though against its 
own desire. And although we find in all our conduct 
many weaknesses and imperfections, the soul is not 
responsible for them, but the body, that is an evil 
instrument and a vessel empty of all that is good. 



i 5 2 7 ] Teachings of Hubmaier 195 

" The commandment is given to the spirit as a help, a 
witness against sin; to the soul as a light to learn the 
way of piety, and to the body for the knowledge of sin. 
Bat when the body hears the law it is terrified, and from 
fright all the hair stands on end. The spirit is in a 
jubilee of joy, and the believing soul thanks God and 
praises him for giving him a light to its feet. However, 
if our spirit is to be free and our soul well, and the fall 
of the body harmless, all this must necessarily be accom- 
plished through the new birth in Christ. If that is not 
accomplished, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 
According to the apostle, God creates us freely by the 
word of truth, that we may be the beginning of creation, 
that is, the first fruits of the creation, and in this word 
we are again free and sound, so that there is no longer 
anything worthy of condemnation in us. Christ has 
made the fall of Adam entirely harmless to us, and 
therefore no one should complain any more of Adam, 
and excuse his sins by his fall, as everything has been 
recovered for us that we lost by the sin of Adam. For 
Christ has merited by his Spirit that our spirit's prison 
(the body) does it no harm. By his soul he has merited 
for our soul, that it is enlightened by his divine word; 
and by his body for our body, that after the resurrection 
it shall be glorious and immortal. For this reason, 
whoever sins now himself bears the penalty of his sins, 
because he has himself to blame for them, and not Adam 
or Eve, body or sin, death or devil, for all that has been 
bound and vanquished in Christ." 

This is the sum of the first book on the Freedom 
of the Will. In his second treatise on the subject 
Hubmaier goes at large into the exegesis of the 



196 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

Scripture passages that bear on the subject, and 
makes plainer than before his desire to give reality 
to the preaching of the gospel. The doctrine 
taught by Luther and his followers was that in 
spiritual things the unregenerate man is wholly 
blind, unable to work the righteousness of God, 
and his will has become utterly hostile to God, so 
that he cannot by his own powers give any assist- 
ance or co-operation towards his own salvation. 
He is as a man in the rapids of Niagara, being 
swept towards destruction, not only unable to do 
anything to help himself, but unable even to grasp 
the rope thrown to him by a friendly hand, — nay, 
not even desiring to be saved, and must against 
his will be dragged ashore, kicking and struggling 
against his rescuer to the last. It was thought 
necessary to teach such a doctrine of the will in 
order to magnify the divine grace in man's salva- 
tion, and to represent man as having any power of 
co-operation was thought to be a minimising of 
God's grace and a bringing back again of the idea 
of salvation by works. But to Hubmaier it seemed 
clear that God's veracity and good faith were no 
less at stake in this matter than the might of his 



1527] Teachings of Hubmaier 197 

grace. For what purpose are all the invitations of 
the gospel, if man cannot possibly heed them? 

"Only a foolish king could place a goal before his 
subjects and then say, ' Now run that you may get 
there,' when he already knows beforehand that they 
are bound in iron and that they cannot run. It were 
certainly a cunning God, who invites all men to the 
supper, and really offers his mercy to every one, if he 
after all did not wish the invited to come. It were a 
false God who should say in words, ' Come here, ' and 
yet in secret in his heart should think, ' Sit yonder. ' It 
would be an unfaithful God who should publicly offer 
grace to man, and should clothe him in new raiment, 
yet in secret take it away from him and prepare hell for 
him. Cursed be he who maintains that God has com- 
manded us impossible things, for everything that is im- 
possible to our strength is possible by the word which 
God has sent. ... As the human eye is capable of 
seeing light, and yet cannot see it unless the light streams 
into the eye, likewise man has the power to see the light 
of faith through the word of God, yet he cannot see this 
light unless by the heavenly illumination it is borne into 
his soul. . . . Whoever denies the freedom of the 
human will, denies and rejects more than half of the 
Holy Scriptures." 

From the passages already quoted, it will be seen 
that Htibmaier's theory regarding original sin is 
very nearly, if not exactly, that now called the 
realistic. When Adam fell the race fell, since the 



198 Balthasar Hiibmaier £1^4- 

race was potentially in him. The imputation of 
Adam's sin to his posterity, that great subject of 
quarrel among theologians, does not engage his 
thought, nor does he go at any length into the 
nature of sin itself, but what he does say is very 
much to the point. He defines sin to be "every 
motion or desire against the will of God, whether 
in thought, word or deed," in which he evidently 
comes nearer to the profound truth than those 
modern theologians who would limit sin to con- 
scious trangression of the law. 

The group of doctrines usually treated by theo- 
logians under the head of Soteriology receives 
scant attention in Hiibmaier's writings. Not that 
he had any doubt regarding any of them, but the 
circumstances under which he wrote were such as 
to call for no extended treatment. Of the atone- 
ment, for example, as the means of salvation, he 
speaks definitely but once; and if his words were 
literally interpreted they would show that he 
was satisfied with the theory of satisfaction as 
taught by Anselm, or possibly as developed by 
Aquinas. As to the execution of the divine elec- 
tion, the means by which men are actually saved, 



i 527 ] Teachings of Hiibmaier 199 

" effectual calling," he declares that this calling is 
twofold : 

" Leonard. — How does God call or draw men ? 

" John. — In two ways, inwardly and outwardly. The 
outward drawing takes place by the public proclamation 
of his holy gospel, which Christ commanded to be 
preached to every creature, and is now made known 
everywhere. The inward drawing is wrought by God, 
who enlightens the soul within, so that it understands 
the undeniable truth, and is so thoroughly convinced 
by the Spirit and the preached word, as to confess from 
the conscience that these things must be so, and cannot 
be otherwise." ' 

Of this calling through the word Hiibmaier makes 
much in all his writings, believing evidently that it 
is the chief means by which God has appointed men 
to be saved. Hence the importance, in his estima- 
tion, of the preaching of a "pure, true, clean gos- 
pel," words that flow from his pen so often as to 
become a sort of formula. 

The result of this calling, of this hearing the 
word, is faith, 

" a perception of the unspeakable mercy of God, of the 
gracious favour and good-will which he bears to us 
through his well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, whom he 



Table of Christian Doctrine, Op. n ; Hoschek, ii., 266, 



200 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

did not spare, but gave to death on account of our sin, 
that sin might be paid and we be reconciled with him, 
and be able to say to him with assurance of heart, Abba, 
Father, ' our Father, who art in heaven.' " {Op. n.) 

This faith is something more than mere belief; if 
genuine, "living," it will manifest itself by bringing 
forth the fruits of the Spirit. Faith is the human 
side of this transaction, and in consequence of faith, 
or in connection with it, the Spirit of God works a 
complete change in man's affections and will: 

" I believe and trust that the Holy Spirit has come in 
me, and the power of the Most High God has, as with 
Mary, overshadowed my soul, that I may conceive the 
new man, and so in thy living, indestructible word and 
in the Spirit be born again and see the kingdom of God. 1 

" If we are to become again free in spirit ... it 
must be through a new birth, without which, Christ 
says, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. ' Of his 
own will begat he us with the word of his power ' 
[James i., 18]. In him alone do we really get free and 
sound again. So Christ says, ' The truth will make 
you free indeed' [John viii., 32]." 2 

There is no mention of justification in Hubmaier's 
writings, even where we might fairly expect to find 



1 Twelve Articles, Op. 18. 

2 Freedom of the Will, Hoschek, ii., 265. 



i 5 2 7 ] Teachings of Hubmaier 201 

it, — in his catechism ; and of course no distinction 
between justification and sanctification. This'omis- 
sion cannot be explained like many others; the 
importance that these doctrines assumed in the 
Reformation period, and the amount of attention 
given them by all writers, preclude any explanation, 
on grounds of lack of necessity, inadvertence, and 
the like, for their absence from the carefully elabo- 
rated and deliberately printed works of any man of 
the time. The omission must be deliberate, calcu- 
lated, wilful. An omission of such character can 
be accounted for only on one ground, that Hiib- 
maier was anxious to mark clearly his divergence 
from Luther in some matters that the latter reck- 
oned cardinal in the Protestant theology. Beyond 
this we are utterly in the dark. 

From his treatment of faith and regeneration 
Hubmaier passes naturally to the discussion of 
Ecclesiology, and, as we might expect from the cir- 
cumstances that called forth his writings, this is the 
subject that receives by far the largest amount of 
space. Having heard the word, having believed in 
Christ, having been born again by the Spirit, one is 
fitted for the next step, which is to receive baptism. 



202 Balthasar Hubmaier l>5 2 4- 

The baptism of the Spirit is already his : it is fitting 
and natural, therefore, that he should have the 
baptism of water: 

" Water baptism . . . is an external and public 
testimony of the inward baptism of the Spirit, set forth 
by receiving water. By this not only are sins confessed, 
but also faith in their pardon, by the death and resur- 
rection of our Lord Jesus Christ, is declared before all 
men. Hereby also the recipient is externally marked, 
inscribed and incorporated into the fellowship of the 
churches, according to the ordinance of Christ. Pub- 
licly and orally he vows to God, by the strength of God 
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that he will henceforth 
believe and live according to the divine word, and in 
case he should be negligent, that he will receive brotherly 
admonition, according to the order of Christ in Matt, 
xviii. Such are the genuine baptismal vows, which we 
have lost for a thousand years, Satan meanwhile crowd- 
ing in with his monastic and priestly vows, and putting 
them in place of the holy. 1 

" The third error, that we have called the water of 
baptism, as well as the bread and wine of the altar, a 
sacrament, and have so regarded them; though not the 
water, bread or wine, but the vow of baptism or love- 
plight properly and rightly is a sacrament ; which in Latin 
is an oath-plight and promise with joining of hands, 
which the baptised make to Christ, our invincible leader 
and head, that he will contend manfully under his flag 
and banner in Christian faith until death." 2 



1 Table of Christian Doctrine, Op. II ; Hoschek, ii., 254. 

2 Form for Baptising, Op. 19. 



1527] Teachings of Hubmaier 203 

But while thus careful to disclaim all sacramental 
efficacy for baptism, he will not admit that it is a 
mere negligible form: 



"Read the history of the apostles and you will find 
that the Samaritans believed Philip and afterwards were 
baptised. So also Simon and the chamberlain of Queen 
Candace believed and afterwards were baptised. Paul 
believed and afterwards was baptised. Cornelius and 
his household believed, received the Holy Spirit and 
afterwards were baptised with water. Lydia, the seller 
of purple, and the jailor, believed and were baptised. 
Who would or can think that all these would have been 
baptised, if the order and earnest command of Christ 
had not moved and constrained them to it ? Truly, they 
might indeed have said, ' We have believed the word of 
God, and we have in part received the Holy Spirit: what 
need have we of baptism? Faith saves.' Nay, not so, 
but he who believes is baptised and does not dispute, for 
he sees the order of Christ before his eyes and performs 
it, where water and a baptiser may be had; but when the 
two cannot be had, there faith is enough. Take an 
example. Had the chamberlain, sitting beside Philip 
and believing, died straightway before they came to the 
brook, he were no less saved before the baptism than 
afterwards. This is the meaning of Christ when he says, 
4 He that believes and is baptised shall be saved, but he 
that believes not is condemned ' ; for no doubt many 
thousands have been saved who have not been baptised, 
for they could not obtain it. But as the chamberlain 
had both the baptiser and the water together, he was 
bound by the command of Christ to be baptised. Had 



204 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i S24 - 

he not done it, Christ would have held him as a despiser 
and transgressor of his words, and as such he would 
have been punished." 1 

But though he insists thus strenuously on belief 
before baptism, and on the duty of every believer 
to be "baptised rightly, according to the order of 
Christ, even though he be a hundred years old," he 
will not for a moment admit that he is rightly called 
an Anabaptist : 

" I have never taught Anabaptism. I know of none, 
except that in Acts xix. But the right baptism of Christ, 
which is preceded by teaching and oral confession of 
faith, I teach, and say that infant baptism is a robbery 
of the right baptism of Christ, and a misuse of the high 
name of God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, altogether 
opposed to the institution of Christ and to the customs 
of the apostles. 2 

"But since this oath [in the pledge of baptism] is 
made to Christ himself, who abides in eternity, the once 
baptised should not be rebaptised, as the Novatians and 
Hemerobaptists. Yet since the invented infant baptism 
is no baptism, those who have received water baptism 
according to the order of Christ cannot be charged with 
rebaptism, though in their childhood and in the blindness 
of their forefathers they were formerly bathed in water. ' ' 3 



1 Ground and Reason, Op. 16. 

2 Short Apology, Op. 13. 

3 Form for Baptising, Op. 19. 



1527] Teachings of Hlibmaier 205 

According to the Scriptures baptism is in some 
way connected with the remission of sins. In some 
cases Hiibmaier so states this connection as to per- 
mit the inference from his words that he would have 
agreed with Alexander Campbell and his followers. 
But it is evident, on reading farther, that this is 
merely an unguarded and careless expression of his 
belief. Elsewhere he defines more strictly what 
this connection is: 

" Water baptism was given for the forgiveness of sins. 
Acts ii., 38; 1 Pet. hi., 21. It is all contained in the 
ninth and tenth articles of Christian belief, where we 
confess a universal Christian Church, a communion of 
saints and forgiveness of sins, which was the understand- 
ing and conclusion set forth by the Nicene Council, with 
these words, ' I confess one only baptism to the remis- 
sion of sins.' Therefore, as much as one is concerned 
about communion with God the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, yea, also about communion with the heavenly 
host and with the whole Christian Church, also about the 
forgiveness of his sins, so much should he be concerned 
about water baptism, by which he enters and is incorpo- 
rated in the universal Christian Church, out of which 
there is no salvation. Not that the remission of sins is 
to be ascribed to the water, but to the power of the keys 
which Christ by his word has given to his Spouse and 
unspotted bride, the Christian Church, in his bodily 
absence, and hung at her side when he said to her, 
1 Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins ye loose they are 



206 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i S24 - 

loosed, and whose sins ye retain they are retained-.' 
John xx., 22, 23. Just so Christ speaks in another place 
to the Church, " Verily I say to you, Whatsoever ye bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' Matt, xviii., 
18. Here one sees plainly that the universal Church has 
the same power to loose or to bind sins now on earth 
which Christ himself as a man aforetime bodily here on 
earth had. He who believes the word of God enters the 
ark of Noah, which is a true figure of baptism, that out 
of this ark he be not drowned in the flood of sin." * 

By baptism, it is said in the last quotation, the 
believer becomes incorporated in the Church. That 
naturally raises the question, What does Hiibmaier 
understand by the Church? in what sense or senses 
does he use that word? The answer to this ques- 
tion is not obscurely hinted at in the above para- 
graph, but it is well to see what are the more 
explicit definitions: 

". . . The people . . . have with public con- 
fession of Christian faith and with reception of water 
baptism been inscribed, marked and incorporated with 
the assembly of the universal Church, out of which is no 
salvation, as there was none out of the ark of Noah. 
Out of this people there has now become a separate and 
outward church, and a new daughter born of her mother 
— as the mother, that is, the universal Church, does the 
will of her husband and spouse, who is Christ Jesus, the 

1 Ground and Reason, Op. 16, 



i S 2 7 ] Teachings of Hiibmaier 207 

Son of the living God, whose will he performed unto 
death — in order that the will of God the Father by his 
beloved Son, the mother and daughter, be maintained on 
earth as it is in heaven." 1 

" Leonard. — Seeing you have now assured the church 
of your faith by your baptism, go on and tell us what is 
the church. 

" John. — The Church is sometimes taken to include 
all men who are congregated and united in one God, in 
one Lord, in one faith and in one baptism, and confess 
the faith with the mouth, wherever they may be on earth. 
That is the universal Christian Church, the body and 
communion of saints, that meets only in the Spirit of 
God, which is named in the ninth article of the creed. 
Sometimes the church is taken to include a particular 
external congregation, parish or people, that belongs 
under one pastor or bishop, and comes together bodily 
for doctrine, baptism and the supper. The church as 
daughter has equal power with the mother, the universal 
Church, in binding and loosing upon earth, as long as she 
uses the keys according to the command of Christ, her 
spouse and husband. 

"Leonard. — What is the difference between these 
two churches ? 

'* John. — The particular church may err, as the papal 
Church has erred in many things, but the universal 
Church cannot err. She is without spot or wrinkle, is 
ruled by the Holy Spirit, and Christ is with her to the 
end of the world. God always keeps for himself seven 
thousand who have not bowed their knees to the idol of 
Baal. 



1 Concerning Brotherly Discipline, Op. 21. 



208 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 _ 

" Leonard. — Upon what is the Christian Church 
built ? 

" John. — On the oral confession of faith that Jesus is 
the Christ, the Son of the living God. This external 
confession, and not faith alone, makes a church, for a 
church has power to bind or to loose, is external, is a 
body, while faith is eternal. Although faith alone justi- 
fies, it does not by itself save. Public confession must 
be present as we read plainly in Matt, xvi., 18: ' On this 
rock (to wit, the preceding confession) I will build my 
church.' See also Matt, x., 32; Luke xii., 8; Rom. x., 



Christ has girded his bride, the Church, with two 
bands : the second of these is the Supper, which is 
the pledge of brotherly love and the memorial of 
Christ's sufferings. The bread and wine are real 
bread and wine: but they are also the body and 
blood of Christ, yet only in the sense of memorials. 
Hiibmaier asserted an important difference between 
his teaching and Zwingli's, and reproached the latter 
for falsifying the Scriptures in saying "This is my 
body" is equivalent to "This signifies my body." 
Not even Luther is more emphatic in rejecting this 
exegesis of the Swiss reformer, and insisting that 
"is " must be taken in the plain sense of " is " and 
nothing else. But then he immediately argues away 

1 Table of Christian Doctrine, Op. 11 ; Hoschek, ii., 202. 



1 52 7 ] Teachings of Hubmaier 209 

that for which he has so valiantly contended, in a 
manner more creditable to his ingenuity than to his 
good sense and good faith. 

"This is my body," he says, is immediately fol- 
lowed by "Do this in remembrance of me." It is 
a well-known rule that every subject must be under- 
stood by its predicate. Hence, "This is my body" 
must be taken to mean, This bread is the body of 
Christ that was crucified for us. But, as matter of 
fact, the bread was not crucified, did not die for us. 
Therefore the bread must be the body of Christ 
not in reality but in remembrance, for the words 
"in remembrance of me " qualify all the preceding 
words. Hence the breaking, distributing, and eat- 
ing of the bread is not an actual breaking, dis- 
tributing, and eating of the body of Christ, but a 
remembrance of his passion, an eating in faith that 
he did this for us. 1 

Whether Hubmaier's exegesis or Zwingli's is the 
better may be a fair question, but what is perfectly 
plain is that they reach exactly the same result. 
One cannot resist the conclusion that this difference 
between the two teachers amounted to just nothing 

1 Simple Explanation, Op. 15; Hoschek, ii., 134^. 
14 



210 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 524 - 

at all, and that on Hubmaier's part it was nothing 
more than a survival of that subtle, hair-splitting 
method of debate learned by him in the universities, 
from which he never completely emancipated him- 
self. He had no grounds, certainly, to condemn 
Zwingli, and he shows too much eagerness to find 
a cause of accusation against one who had indeed 
wronged him, but against whom he was not there- 
fore permitted to seek vengeance in this way. 

If the Form of the Supper which he published is 
to be construed literally, then Hiibmaier was in 
favour of surrounding the service with much ritual; 
with its homilies and prescribed prayers it is ex- 
tremely liturgical. The actual administration is, 
however, very simple : 

11 Now the priest takes the bread into his hand, breaks 
it, and gives it to those present, and says, ' The Lord 
Jesus the night on which he was betrayed, took bread, 
and when he had given thanks he broke it and said, 
11 This is my body that is given for you, do this in re- 
membrance of me." Take and eat this bread, brothers 
and sisters, in memory of the body of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which he gave us when he died for us.' And 
when all have eaten, the priest takes the cup with the 
wine and says, with eyes lifted, ' God, to thee be the 
honour and praise.' Then he passes it to them and 
says, ' In like manner the Lord Jesus took the cup when 

i 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 211 

he had supped, saying, " This cup is a new covenant in 
my blood; do this as oft as ye drink it in remembrance 
of me." Therefore take the cup and drink out of it all 
of you, in remembrance of the blood of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that was shed for us for the forgiveness of our 
sins.' And when all have drunk the priest says, 'As oft 
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth 
the Lord's death, till he come.' " 

It is also clear that Hiibmaier was what in these 
days would be called a "close communionist " ; that 
is, he held that baptism should always precede the 
communion, and as there was but one baptism, the 
baptism of a believer, those who had received only 
the so-called baptism bestowed on them in their 
infancy were not entitled to come to the Lord's 
table. This view he clearly sets forth in his Form 
for Baptising in Water: 

" Everywhere the supper of Christ has been held, and 
men have communicated under both forms (as they call 
it), and yet no baptism has preceded, against the clear 
Scripture, which shows this order: first, preaching; 
second, faith; third, confession; fourth, water baptism ; 
fifth, breaking of bread (Acts ii. and other places). 
But Satan can well suffer it that one builds up something 
to-day, and in a little time breaks it down again; for 
thereby many people are so greatly weakened, mazed 
and vexed, that they do not at all know what they should 
believe and hold." 



212 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

One of the characteristics of the Anabaptists gen- 
erally was the importance they attached to discipline 
and the Ban, or excommunication. This may be 
seen in the Schleitheim Confession and many of 
their extant documents. Hubmaier does not differ 
from the general body in this respect; indeed, he 
would make this the doctrine of a standing or fall- 
ing church. Again and again he uses language like 
this: 

" Yea, God lives and himself testifies that I speak the 
truth: unless brotherly discipline be restored, received 
and used according to the earnest command of Christ, it 
is impossible that it can be right and well with Christians 
on earth. Although we all with all our might cry, write 
and hear the gospel, yet crying, labour and toil is in vain 
and unprofitable — even water baptism and the breaking 
of bread are in vain and to no purpose and without fruit 
— where brotherly discipline and Christian excommuni- 
cation do not accompany them." 

To this subject he has devoted two entire treatises, 
but the briefest statement of his views is in his 
catechism : 

11 Leonard — What is fraternal discipline ? 

•-' John — When one sees his brother sin, he should go 
to him in love and admonish him fraternally and privately 
to leave off such sin. If he does leave off, his soul is 



1527] Teachings of Hubmaier 213 

won. If he does not, then two or three witnesses should 
be taken, and he may be admonished before them a 
second time. If he yields it is well; if not, the church 
should hear it. He is brought before her and admon- 
ished the third time. If he leaves off his sin the church 
has won his soul. 

" Leonard — Where does the church get its authority ? 

11 John — From Christ's command, given in Matt, xviii. 
18; John xx., 23. 

" Leonard — By what right may one brother use his 
authority over another ? 

11 John — By the baptismal vow, which subjects every 
one to the church and all its members, according to the 
word of Christ. 

" Leonard — Suppose the admonished sinner will not 
correct his course ? 

" John — Then the church has the power and right to 
exclude and excommunicate him, as a perjurer and 
apostate. 

11 Leonard — What is excommunication ? 

" John — It is exclusion and separation to such an ex- 
tent that no fellowship is held with such a person by 
Christians, whether in speaking, eating, drinking, grind- 
ing, baking, or in any other way, but he is treated as a 
heathen and a publican, that is, as an offensive, dis- 
orderly and venomous man, who is bound and delivered 
over to Satan. He is to be avoided and shunned, lest 
the entire visible church be evil spoken of, disgraced 
and dishonoured by his company, and corrupted by his 
example, instead of being startled and made afraid by 
his punishment, so that they will mortify their sins. 
For as truly as God lives what the church admits or 
excludes on earth is admitted or excluded above. 



214 Balthasar Hubmaier [i S24 - 

" Leonard — What are grounds for exclusion ? 

" John — Unwillingness to be reconciled with one's 
brother, or to abstain from sin. 

" Leonard — For what should we exclude ? 

" John — Not for six shillings' worth of hazel nuts, as 
our papist friends have been wont to do, but on account 
of an offensive sin, and for the sake of the offender, that 
he may reflect, know himself and abstain from sin. 

"Leonard — If he abstains from the sin, avoids the 
paths by which he might again fall, and does better, what 
position is the church to take ? 

" John — She is to receive him again with joy, as the 
father the prodigal son, and as Paul the Corinthian, 
opening heaven to him and welcoming him to the fellow- 
ship of Christ's supper." 

On the question of singing hymns the Anabaptists 
were as much troubled and divided as some modern 
Presbyterian sects. Some opposed the use of any- 
thing but the psalms for this purpose, yet on the 
other hand some of the oldest Anabaptist composi- 
tions extant are hymns. Hubmaier took a moder- 
ate and sensible view of this, as of most practical 
questions. 

" With singing and reading in the churches I am well 
contented (but not as they have hitherto been con- 
ducted), when it is with the spirit and from the heart 
and with understanding of the words and edification of 
the church as Paul teaches us (i Cor xiv., 15; Col. in., 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 215 

16; Eph. v., 19). But otherwise God utterly rejects it 
and will have none of our Baal cries (Mai. ii., 17 ; Ezek. 
xxxiii., 31, 32)." ' 

The Anabaptists were likewise greatly divided on 
the question of the community of goods, some 
holding it to be an inseparable part of church order 
that the brethren should have all things in com- 
mon, as in the church at Jerusalem. In his writings 
Hiibmaier does not deal with this question, for he 
does not appear to have been brought into personal 
contact with Anabaptists who held this theory till 
the closing months of his life. There is no reason 
to doubt that the explanation he made to the Zurich 
council, already quoted in full, correctly represented 
both his private views and his public teaching, not 
only up to that time, but to the end of his life. 
The fact that at Nikolsburg he found this doctrine 
closely associated with Hut's chiliasm and denial of 
the right of the sword, would not be likely to incline 
him to its acceptance, to say the least. We may, 
without fear of hasty conclusion, set Hiibmaier 
down as a disbeliever in this doctrine as a necessary 
part of Christianity. 



Short Apology, Op. 1 3. 



216 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 524 - 

As to eschatology, Hubmaier held precisely those 
beliefs that were then and are still reckoned ortho- 
dox. He taught the resurrection of the body, a final 
judgment, an everlasting life with God for the re- 
deemed, and an eternal retribution for those dying 
in their wickedness. He treats all these points 
briefly and with reserve, but so as to make clear his 
full acceptance of them all, because he believed 
them to be taught in the Scriptures. There is not 
a trace of the restorationism found in the teachings 
of Denck. On one question about which some of 
the Anabaptists were more outspoken, he is inclined 
to make no positive pronouncement, namely, the 
fate of those dying in infancy. The Romanists and 
some Protestants settle this question easily, by say- 
ing that all infants who are baptised are saved, while 
others are lost. The Calvinist used to be ready 
with his answer, that all elect infants are saved, 
leaving it to be certainly inferred that non-elect in- 
fants are lost. Hubmaier will go no farther than 
the Scriptures go. He cannot find in these an ex- 
plicit declaration that all infants are saved, therefore 
he will not assert it ; nevertheless he makes it plain 
that he considers the salvation of all infants to be an 



1527] Teachings of Hiibmaier 217 

opinion wholly consonant with what the Scriptures 
do say, and there he leaves the matter, trusting to 
the love and mercy of God, and confident that He 
will do right. And what more can any one do who 
founds his theology strictly on the Scriptures? 

Of Hubmaier's teachings regarding liberty of 
conscience, the relations of the religious and the 
civil powers, and the like, enough has been said. 
The question of oaths he discusses very slightly, 
but here he must have disagreed positively with the 
more austere Anabaptist groups. If magistrates 
ajad courts are according to the order of Christ, 
judicial oaths can be no less so. Nor need we linger 
over the negative and polemic side of our author's 
teachings, interesting though these frequently are, 
and racy though his language often is. Hiibmaier 
was frequently at his best in polemic writing. He 
is less abusive, less scurrilous, than the major part 
of the writers of the period. He could write against 
an opponent without dipping his pen in gall and 
vitriol, though he sometimes offends against a 
modern sense of propriety in speaking of and to his 
adversaries. 

In spite of all that we have found in this man 



218 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1524-1527] 

that demands our reprobation, have we not found 
much more that has moved us to admiration? Not- 
withstanding his wavering at Zurich, does not Hiib- 
maier seem to us to stand forth as one of the heroic 
figures of the Reformation age? He might have 
taken for his own, words that Addison has put into 
the mouth of his Cato : 

" 'T is not in mortals to command success, 
But we '11 do more, Sempronius — we '11 deserve it." 



CHAPTER VII 

HUBMAIER THE MARTYR 

1527-1528 

[7ROM the time of his election to the Margravate 
*■ of Moravia (October, 1526), Ferdinand of 
Austria had been determined to make his authority 
as absolute in that province as in his own duchy of 
Austria. The Moravian nobles had long been ac- 
customed to a semi-independence that they now 
resigned with great reluctance, but they could op- 
pose no effective resistance to the force that Ferdi- 
nand could put into the field, and slowly, with an ill 
grace, they submitted. As there could be no open 
resistance, so there could be no flat disobedience — 
passive, sullen, disaffected if not disloyal, they 
obeyed when they must, and disobeyed when 
they dared. 

Ferdinand was a loyal son of the Church, and was 

determined to suppress heresy everywhere in his 

219 



220 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 527 - 

domains. He was not ignorant of the fact that 
Moravia was, just then, the chief hotbed of heresy 
in Europe, and so soon as he could make his au- 
thority felt in the province he began to demand 
the co-operation of the nobles to suppress heresy 
and punish heretics. A general edict, bearing date 
August 28, 1527, required instant and strict enforce- 
ment of the decree of the Diet of Worms, and 
directed that special pains be taken by magistrates 
and governors to bring to punishment those who 
were practising rebaptism and denied the venerable 
sacrament of the altar. 1 Special edicts relating to 
affairs in Moravia were issued later, but this was 
the one under which the arrest and prosecution of 
Hiibmaier occurred. 

The terms of the edict make it plain that, among 
all the heretics, the Anabaptists were singled out 
for especial severity. The writings that Hiibmaier 
had been so industriously composing and circulating 
were now read far beyond the bounds of Moravia, 
and the hereditary domains of Ferdinand were be- 
ginning to feel the result of the evangelical agita- 



1 Loserth, p. 171, from the State archives. Cf. Beck, Geschichts- 
B tie her, p. 60 , n. 1. 



i 5 28] The Martyr 221 

tion. Not only Moravia, but the Tyrol, Salzburg, 
and even Austria itself were swarming with heretics. 
From many sources it may be gathered that genuine 
and not unreasonable apprehension was caused by 
the rapid spread of Anabaptism. All the interests 
of the Roman Church demanded its immediate and 
effective repression. And every Catholic ruler was 
apprehensive lest the progress of heresy should 
mean the weakening of his own authority — that 
revolt from the Church would only be the prelude 
to a revolt from civil authority. 

It would not require much time for the authorities 
to learn that Nikolsburg was the storm-centre of 
this new movement, and that the leader there was 
the same pestilent fellow who had already given 
them so great trouble at Waldshut, and upon whom 
they had been most anxious to lay hands for three 
or four years past. Copies of certain writings of his 
had been transmitted to the Austrian Government, 
which thereupon proceeded to act with decision. 
Early in July, probably, the lords of Lichtenstein 
were commanded to come to Vienna and bring with 
them this heretic and rebel, long a fugitive from 
Austrian justice. The command was obeyed, and 



222 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 527 - 

Hiibmaier and his wife were taken to Vienna and 
confined until arrangements could be made for their 
trial. * 

A preliminary examination seems to have been 
given him at once, for Ferdinand wrote, July 22nd, 
to Freiburg a letter in which he said : 

"Since Dr. Balthasar a long time ago was pastor in 
our city of Waldshut, and through his preaching and 
misleading doctrine mischief, ill-will, disturbance and 
rebellion greatly increased among the common people in 
our borderlands, the city of Waldshut all but fell away 
from us and our house. When the city of Waldshut was 
afterwards conquered, he fled and came into our Mar- 
gravate of Moravia. On account of all this we have cir- 
cumspectly lain in wait for him, until we brought him to 
our royal prison here in Vienna, and have confined him 
in prison, and had him examined, yet without torture, 
on the enclosed list of questions. Now you were very 
active during the said disturbance at Waldshut, and that 
of the peasants, and know much about this business of 
the Doctor's, and no doubt remember it well. Since, 
therefore, the affair does not admit of postponement, we 
command you, speedily and without delay, to give thor- 
ough and diligent examination to the list of questions, 



1 Of the three different, and even conflicting, accounts in Anabap- 
tist chronicles of the period, the above is the most probable. Ho- 
schek simply gives the various accounts (ii., 253) without attempting 
to reconcile them or decide between them ; while Loserth (p. 173) 
gives the above, but does not hint that there is any conflict on this 
point. See Beck, Geschichts-Bucher , pp. 52, 53. 



i5«8] The Martyr 223 

with reference to the late hearing; also that you learn 
by thorough inquiry whatever else you can concerning 
all that is herein included, and give us your counsel re- 
garding the same, that we may know in future how to 
perform our whole duty in the uprooting of evil, and by 
punishment to make so much the better example for 
others. 1 

After this preliminary examination, which is dis- 
tinctly stated to have been held in the royal prison 
at Vienna, Hubmaier and his wife were sent else- 
where for several months. 

The place of their confinement is said by all the 
contemporary authorities to have been the castle of 
Greisenstein, or Gratzenstein or Greutzenstain, but 
there has been and is dispute as to the identification 
of this spot. Beck and Loserth think that the castle 
of Kreutzenstein is meant, on the ground that it is 
known to have been used in the sixteenth century 
as a State prison. Others have generally identified 
the place with Greifenstein, a castle still in posses- 
sion of the Lichtenstein family, a few miles from 
Vienna on the Danube. This identification seems 
the more probable, and suggests that Hubmaier 
may have been left in the custody of his noble 



Quoted by Losertli (p. 174) from the State archives at Innsbruck. 



224 Balthasar Hubmaier [1527- 

friends for a time, who, though powerless to pro- 
tect him, might be able to alleviate his confinement 
somewhat. 

In our ignorance of all the facts, the lords of 
Lichtenstein necessarily lie under the odious sus- 
picion of having surrendered their chief preacher 
with altogether too much alacrity, for it does not 
appear that they made any attempt whatever to 
save him. It is possible, even probable, that it re- 
quired all their power and social standing to secure 
their own immunity from prosecution. But the 
suspicion may, after all, do them an injustice. 
Much was made in the preliminary accusation, and 
throughout the process, of Hubmaier's alleged dis- 
loyal conduct at Waldshut. It was no uncommon 
thing, in those days, to arrest a man on a charge of 
sedition and condemn him for heresy, or vice versa. 
It may well be the case that the demand sent to 
Nikolsburg for the surrender of Hubmaier specified 
sedition as the chief offence — it may even have been 
the only offence then named. 1 

The circumstances all confirm this hypothesis. 



1 So Loserth (p. 173), who says persecution for heresy did not 
begin in Moravia until March, 1528. 



i 5 28] The Martyr 225 

If the charge were sedition and not heresy, it is 
difficult to see on what decent pretext the lords of 
Lichtenstein could have declined to surrender for 
trial one whose offence was alleged to be flagrant. 
Had a question been raised at this time concerning 
the religious beliefs and teaching of Hiibmaier, the 
barons might have been expected to make some 
protest at least, if not to resist forcibly. For their 
preacher was no greater heretic than themselves — 
no worse in belief, though perhaps more influential, 
than the other evangelical preachers. But it seems 
beyond question that not only the Lichtensteins, 
but also the other evangelical preachers of Nikols- 
burg, were not accused at this time. Indeed, they 
were treated with a lenity that would be most sur- 
prising, were it not so apparent that the immediate 
object of wrath was Hiibmaier, and that Austria 
was willing to let the general persecution of the 
Anabaptists slumber until this arch-heretic had been 
dispatched. 

But if everything thus points towards treason as 
the charge on which Hiibmaier was surrendered, it 
is certain that when once Austria got her claws 
on him the charge of heresy was also raised and 

J 5 



226 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 527 - 

pressed. This was apparent in the preliminary 
examination given him at Vienna, before he was 
sent to Greisenstein, and his imprisonment there 
weighed heavily on his health and spirits. Hiib- 
maier was not a man of great fortitude, as he had 
already shown at Zurich, and it is more than prob- 
able that the ardour of his labours at Nikolsburg, 
following the hardships he had previously experi- 
enced, had left him with a small stock of physical 
strength. In his bodily weakness, his soul began 
to quail at the prospect of torture and death, and 
he bethought him of expedients by which his life 
might again be saved. The intervention of his old 
schoolmate and friend, John Faber, now vicar- 
general of the Bishop of Constance, occurred to him 
as the thing most likely to be helpful. Accordingly 
he urgently requested the favour of an interview 
with Faber, and the request was granted. Faber 
hastened to Greisenstein, moved in part possibly 
by affection for his old school-fellow, but still more 
by hope of winning to the truth a heretic so dis- 
tinguished. He took with him no books but the 
Bible, and had a long interview — or rather, a series 
of interviews — with Hiibmaier, of which he has left 



i 5 28] The Martyr 227 

a full account. It is open to suspicion in some par- 
ticulars, but in the main bears the impress of truth. 
Faber reached Greisenstein December 14th, and 
in his visit to his former friend was accompanied by 
Lord Mark of Leopoldsdorf and Ambrozius Salzer, 
rector of the Vienna gymnasium — neither of whom, 
however, seems to have taken any part in the dis- 
cussion. Faber began with a long address, in which 
he expressed the sincere love he had never ceased 
to cherish for the comrade of his school-days, and 
promised his aid in any way that he could render 
it. But above all he was anxious to convince his 
friend of his errors, and lead him back to the truth. 
To this Hiibmaier is said to have replied : 

"Although I certainly know that I shall have to die, 
and that I have deserved the penalties that await me, yet 
I do not wish that the poor people, who have received 
their doctrine from me, should remain in error on my 
account. Whatever I have either written or taught 
hitherto was not for my own advantage, but simply from 
the conviction that the Spirit of God was leading me to 
do it, and at this moment there is no man in the world 
whom I would rather see or hear than you. Hence I 
have often thought, when I heard you speak of the 
articles of my faith, how I could bring it about for you 
to instruct me, and if I were found in error, to lead me 
out of it; and for this reason I must now tender my 



228 Balthasar Hubmaier [ l527 - 

humblest thanks to his Royal Grace for sending you to 
me, and as far as my strength permits, if God hears my 
deepest prayers, I will show myself thankful for this 
favour. Besides, be assured that I will obey no one in 
the whole world so gladly as you alone. One thing I 
ask, that my errors be refuted by passages of Holy 
Scripture, so that I may not be pressed to act contrary 
to my conscience." ' 

They differed at the very beginning, however, on 
the use and interpretation of the Scriptures, Faber 
urging the usual Catholic saying that the Scriptures 
are infallible only when interpreted by an infallible 
Church. But Hubmaier contended that any be- 
liever, led by the Holy Spirit, can discern the true 
sense of Scripture, at least so far as all things neces- 
sary to salvation are concerned. Obscure passages 
did not demand an authoritative interpreter, but 
only that they be compared with other passages less 
obscure; and thus the meaning of the text might 
be authoritatively obtained. When they went on 
to the chief tenets of the Anabaptists, agreement 
was still less possible. Faber could not convince 
Hubmaier from the Scriptures that infants should 
be baptised, nor that there is any change in the 
elements in the eucharist, nor that the mass is a 

1 Quoted by Hoschek, ii., 255. 



iS28] The Martyr 229 

sacrifice for sins. On other questions that were 
debated, if we may believe the account of Faber, 
Hiibmaier was more tractable, and suffered himself 
to be understood as holding nothing that could be 
called heretical regarding intercession of the saints, 
the Virgin Mary, purgatory, fasts, justification by 
faith, free will, and the like. 

The interview closed with this exhortation from 
Faber: "What I have said, I have said with a good, 
sincere purpose. Now see to it, and take care of 
yourself for your own good." To which Hiib- 
maier' s final reply was, "Everything that you have 
said I certainly accept with thanks, and your pre- 
sence at this place is dearer than that of any one 
else in the whole world. I will consider everything 
in a becoming way, and whatever I find to be true 
in my conscience I will publish in a separate work 
dedicated to his Royal Grace. Be yourself, I pray, 
a faithful defender and intercessor for me in this 
matter." ' 

These conversations were protracted through 
several days, and were of such interest to both par- 
ties that at least once the debate continued until 



1 Hoschek, ii., 259. 



230 Balthasar Hubmaier [i 527 - 

two o'clock in the morning, and was resumed again 
at six o'clock! Their conclusion left Hubmaier in 
a decidedly more hopeful state — there seemed to 
him now a fair prospect that his life might be saved. 
He had made considerable concessions, it is true, 
but he doubtless persuaded himself that they were 
not of great moment and did not really compromise 
his integrity. On the main questions of the su- 
preme authority of Scripture, the baptism of be- 
lievers only, the rejection of transubstantiation, he 
could congratulate himself that he had stood firm. 
His ambiguous statements about what Melanchthon 
later called adiaphora, he probably believed to be of 
slight importance. 

As a result of this conference and debate Hub- 
maier sent from his prison to Ferdinand, under 
date of January 3, 1528, a formal statement (Rechen- 
schaft) of his beliefs, a document that has been 
called by some of his biographers a recantation. 
The following summary of these articles, mostly in 
the words of the author, will show how far this title 
is justified by the contents: 

"1. Faith alone is not enough for salvation. We must 



1525 



The Martyr 231 



prove faith with works of love toward God and our 
neighbour. 

"2. Since mere faith does not suffice for salvation, 
good works must also be added to it. 

"3. Whoso permits his faith to stand by itself and 
does not prove it by good works, he changes Christian 
liberty into liberty of the flesh. [This condemns 
Luther's doctrine.] 

"4. In this miserable and dangerous life, it is most 
necessary to impress unceasingly on the people the fear 
of God, that in all their works they should keep God 
before their eyes. 

"5. A man should take care of all his thoughts, words 
and acts, according to the plumb-line of the divine word, 
so that he can always preserve a good conscience towards 
God. 

"6. All things do not come to pass of necessity. 

"7. He who denies the free will of men and calls it an 
empty claim, is nothing in himself, nicknames God a 
tyrant, charges him with injustice, and gives the wicked 
excuse to remain in their sins. 

"8. To avoid evil works and repent of our sins is the 
doctrine of the whole gospel. 

"9. The blessed Virgin Mary is, and always was, pure 
and unspotted. 

"10. Mary is the mother of God. 

"11. Christ was truly God. 

"12. Original sin is not only an infirmity or defect, as 
some write, but a condemnable sin, if we are not in 
Christ and live according to the flesh. It is the mother 
and root of all sins. 

"13. I know in the Scripture no ground for a special 
purgatory, outside of heaven and hell. 



232 Balthasar Hubmaier [ l527 - 

"14. Although Christ has given us many signs to 
know when the day of his coming is at our door, yet no 
one knows this day save God alone. I have firmly 
withstood John Hut and his followers, because they 
have named a specific time for the last day, namely, 
next Whitsunday, and have preached this to the people 
and led them astray [exhorting them] to sell house and 
goods, to leave wife and child, and have misled the 
simple to leave their work and run after them, — an error 
that has sprung from a gross misunderstanding of the 
Scripture. 

"15. The prayers of Christ's faithful ones are advan- 
tageous. 

"16. Concerning confession I have hitherto preached 
that the Scriptures teach three kinds of confession: one 
before God, another before the man whom we have 
wronged, and the third before the Church through ac- 
knowledgment of sins. 

"17. The Church is an external assembling and com- 
munity of believers in one Lord, one faith and one 
baptism. 

"18. Whoever preserves his virginity, has a precious 
jewel. Aged widows should be received into the Church. 

"19. Fasts ought to be observed. 

"20. Sundays should be observed. Certain holidays 
— such as Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday — I am well 
contented [to observe], but not so large a number, as I 
disputed more than twenty years ago at Freiburg, De 
non multiplicandis festis. 

"21. On the fast days one should eat no meat. 

"22. The ten commandments should be frequently 
taught to the people in these troublous days. I have 
taught this in my catechism, where I have set down the 



i 5 28] The Martyr 233 

ten commandments as the first beginning of a Christian 
life. 

"23. Excommunication is a necessary medicine in 
Christianity. 

"24. The intercessions of the saints in our behalf are 
not in vain. 

"25, 26. Most illustrious, most mighty king, most 
gracious lord, I am strongly opposed to the teaching of 
John Hut and his followers regarding baptism and the 
sacrament, and shall oppose them in teaching and writ- 
ings all my life so far as God gives me power. For I 
can say, on the ground of the divine word and with good 
conscience, that he has perverted both articles. I have 
no doubt that I should, with God's help, soon abolish 
his baptism and supper. I have taught nothing concern- 
ing baptism, save that it should be public confession 
with the mouth of Christian faith, also a renunciation 
one must make of the devil and all his works. Therefore 
the baptism I taught and Hut's baptism are as far asunder 
as heaven and hell. Also as to the supper, I trust in 
God I shall not bear his burden. 

" But also, your royal majesty, see, further, that I am 
not stiff-necked and self-willed, since I offer to defer to 
the next [general] Council [of the Church] the two 
articles I have taught and others pertaining to faith, and 
as to these will gladly submit myself to the Church ; and 
will in the meantime permit these articles to remain in 
abeyance, and as to the others will so show and conduct 
myself that your royal majesty will hereafter receive a 
special pleasure that I have laboured well and faithfully. 
But if your royal majesty will not await a council, then 
I beg to defend these articles with the Holy Scriptures 
before your majesty's honourable councillors and the 



234 Balthasar Hlibmaier [i 527 - 

university. Your majesty may then be judge. I would 
gladly so hold myself that I may remain safe before God 
in my conscience and can stand with my soul before the 
last judgment. I will also earnestly pray God day and 
night, that he will of his divine grace give me to know 
means and way through which your royal majesty and 
the whole of Christendom may come to Christian welfare 
and peace. God, who is with me in my distress, will 
hear me; and if your royal majesty should be well pleas- 
ing, I would gladly draw up and write an ordinance of 
Christian government, whereby with God's grace and 
the help of their imperial and royal majesties, we could 
come right soon to peace and unity. 

" 27. Respect and honour should be paid to the au- 
thority of magistrates and laws, as set forth in the book 
On the Sword; and all conspirators and rebels are to be 
condemned. 

11 Wherefore, O most mighty and most gracious king, 
I pray-, by God and his mercy, that your royal majesty — 
as the merciful lord of Austria, of whom always and 
everywhere this praise and title of the Merciful has been 
written, and especially since Dr. John Faber, and Master 
Max Beckh, bishop in Austria, and Master Salzer, rector 
of the University of Vienna, have shown me so great 
grace and favour — may show grace and mercy to me, an 
imprisoned and afflicted man, who now lies in great sick- 
ness, cold and trouble. For with God's help I will so 
conduct, order and hold myself that your royal majesty 
shall have pleasure therefrom. The people I will with 
great earnestness and utmost diligence urge to devotion, 
fear of God and obedience, wherein I would always 
bring them. Your royal majesty and his brother need 
have no doubt regarding my pledge; my Yea shall be 



i 5 28] The Martyr 235 

Yea, and so it will be found at the last day. So help me 
God. Amen." * 

On all but two points, baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, Hiibmaier thus indicated his willingness to 
conform to the teachings of the Catholic Church. 
Faber adds in his statement that his friend denied 
that it was an article of faith that the body and 
blood of Christ are in the sacrament of the altar. 
If this statement is correct, it only shows that 
Hiibmaier's strong point was not the history of the 
Church and its doctrines, which is abundantly 
shown by all his writings. His strength lay in his 
knowledge of the teaching of the Scriptures, and 
his ability to quote these freely in support of his 
contentions. Arguing from the Scriptures he was 
a Samson in controversy ; when he began to speak 
of the Fathers and history he became as other men 
— and weaker than many. 

Precisely what he expected to accomplish by 
composing such a statement and appeal as the fore- 
going, it is difficult to conjecture. He can hardly 

1 In the less important articles abridged, but for the most part in 
Hiibmaier's own words, as preserved in MS. in the archives of the 
Ministry of Justice, discovered by Beck, and first printed by Loserth, 
pp. 176-180. A similar abstract, less full and correct, in Hoschek, 
ii., 504, 505. 



236 Balthasar Hiibmaier [1527- 

have had a serious expectation of saving his life, 
even by a complete recantation. If he became 
reconciled to the Roman Church, and so escaped 
burning as a heretic, there remained the charge of 
treason, for which his head must answer. After all 
the provocation the Austrian Government had re- 
ceived from him, now that it had him safely in its 
power it was little likely to permit him to escape. 
If Hiibmaier could not see this clearly, he must 
have been blind indeed. Yet the only rational ex- 
planation of this strange affair seems to be that in 
his suffering and despair he clutched at the vain 
hope of mercy, and now once more (as formerly at 
Zurich) was prepared to deny much that he had 
taught, if not all, to save his life. Though he still 
holds to his belief about the sacraments, his pro- 
fession of willingness to submit to the decision of an 
Ecumenical Council even in this makes one suspect 
that a promise of release would have drawn from 
him a still further concession. 

Hiibmaier's conduct in these closing months of 
his life is far from heroic. The praise of unswerv- 
ing constancy to the truth cannot be awarded him. 
It is impossible not to draw a parallel between him 



i 5 28] The Martyr 237 

and a more famous man of this period, Archbishop 
Cranmer. Their cases were strikingly similar, for 
both had been guilty of acts of rebellion and treason, 
as well as the advocacy of heresy. They were alike 
also in possessing more moral than physical courage 
— or perhaps it was only fortitude in which they 
were really deficient. Men differ greatly in their 
capacity to endure excruciating physical pain, and 
no one who has not had the experience can be quite 
certain how he would himself behave under torture. 
Savonarola is still a third example, and an eminent 
one, of failure to bear, as well as the average man, 
this cruel test ; but the world has pardoned him this 
one defect in an otherwise heroic character. It has 
done the same in the case of Cranmer, rightly judg- 
ing that his fortitude in the supreme hour out-weighs 
and all but obliterates his earlier shameful defection. 
Shall the world do less in the case of Htibmaier? 
Should we not see in him one in whom the spirit 
was willing and only the flesh weak? He recanted 
no more of his former opinions, certainly, than did 
Savonarola and Cranmer, if as much. He cannot 
be proved to have denied anything that he had held 
to be fundamental in the teachings of the Scriptures. 



238 Balthasar Hiibmaier [i 527 - 

As to his political conduct, he had always main- 
tained that to be blameless, and he never admitted 
himself to have been guilty of treason or sedition, 
even in hope of saving his life. And in the end, as 
to Cranmer and Savonarola, strength was given him 
to meet his doom with a constancy and calm forti- 
tude that moved the admiration of all beholders. 

Ferdinand was very far indeed from being moved 
by any feelings of pity or clemency towards Hiib- 
maier or any of the Anabaptists. On the contrary, 
it could not have been long after the reception of 
the above appeal — supposing that he ever really 
saw or heard of it — that he began to prod his 
officials, and require them to show more zeal in the 
prosecution of such heretics as they already had in 
prison, and to search actively for others. Accord- 
ingly, on March 4th, his regent for Lower Austria 
sent an apology to the King, in which he recounted 
what had been accomplished, in spite of great diffi- 
culties, towards the detection and punishment of 
the heretics. The following paragraph from this 
document especially concerns us : 

" As to the case of Dr. Balthasar Hiibmaier, through 
the bishop and several judicious theologians we have 



1528] The Martyr 239 

made ample arrangements that he shall be dealt with 
according to the command of your majesty. That we 
have forwarded no report concerning his trial for so long 
a time is the fault of his fickleness. For though Hiib- 
maier promised the bishop and the other doctors opposed 
to him, in the hearing that has taken place, to recant his 
teaching and belief, and to send such recantation to the 
bishop within a specified time, he has not yet kept his 
pledge, but has presented only an ambiguous statement 
{eine halbe Meinung), and no completely valid recanta- 
tion. Wherefore the bishop was prevailed upon — against 
our earnest solicitation, according to your majesty's com- 
mand for dealing with Hubmaier — to let him set down in 
writing his reasons for sustaining his doctrine concerning 
rebaptism and the venerable sacrament. With the com- 
position of this writing Hubmaier has busied himself up 
to last Saturday, the last of February. So soon as it 
comes to us through the bishop, we shall forward it to 
your royal majesty, and it ought to be already in your 
majesty's hands." l 

From this it appears that this final statement was 
finished February 29th. A few days elapsed for 
transmission of it to the King, and then the order 
came that Hubmaier should be brought back to 
Vienna. He arrived about March 3rd, and the final 



1 Nothing further is known of this last writing of Hiibmaier's, 
except that it could have contained no recantation. Further search 
may discover it among the Austrian archives. The document from 
which the above extract is taken was found by Dr. Beck in the 
archives of the Ministry of Justice, and is given by Loserth, p. 183. 



240 Balthasar Hlibmaier Uw- 

process began. Few details are known, but it is 
certain that he suffered on the rack, and possibly- 
other tortures were applied. On this occasion, 
however, he remained firm ; he could not be induced 
to retract his teachings regarding baptism and the 
eucharist. His double condemnation followed, as a 
matter of course. His friend, Dr. Faber, published 
immediately after his death a little pamphlet called 
the Reason Why the Patron and First Beginner of 
the Anabaptists, Doctor Balthasar Huebmayr, was 
Burned at Vienna on the ioth of March, 1528. In 
this is given, apparently from official sources, the 
record of the final condemnation, as follows: 

" First, Dr. Balthasar Hubmayer has confessed that at 
Waldshut he preached rebellion against the government, 
which does not tend to peace, but is contrary to God, 
right and his conscience, whence arose much perversity 
and revolt against the government and great shedding of 
blood. 

" Again, he has confessed how from Waldshut he had 
given counsel and written a letter to his royal majesty, 
which served better to promote rebellion than obedience. 

" Again, he has also confessed that while at the afore- 
said Waldshut he went into their houses and said to them 
that their cause was just, whether it should turn out that 
they died or recovered; he had also counselled and 
helped them to swear a league, to oppose all that would 



i 5 28] The Martyr 241 

not abide by the doctrine that he preached, in which he 
confessedly acted contrary to God and his conscience 
and the government. 

"Again, he has also confessed that he enlarged and 
expounded the articles of the peasants, which were sent 
to him from the camp, and that he imagined such as re- 
ceived the same to be Christian and reasonable. He 
confesses also that in this he erred and did wrong. 

" Again, he has also confessed how it happened that 
many of the magistracy of the city of Waldshut went to 
Lauffenberg. There also Hans M tiller, the architect, in 
place of the mayor, permitted the community to be called 
together in the council house, and he announced to them 
the decision of the Diet that according to the will of his 
royal majesty the city should be overwhelmed and the 
citizens should be punished, and advised all who would 
not suffer such things to withdraw from the city until 
affairs should be better. Upon that Dr. Balthazar pub- 
licly took leave of everybody, and went home and said 
he would not be in the report. Thereafter early in the 
morning he went out of the city, came by himself to 
Zurich, and was there imprisoned on account of the 
second baptism, since the same was opposed to Zwingli, 
to whom the people of Zurich adhere. He was also at 
Zurich racked on account of anabaptism, and compelled 
to testify who had led him into such baptism, and why 
he had baptised in their jurisdiction. Therefore he 
made a public recantation of his opposition to infant 
baptism. 

"Again, he also confessed that he had so preached, 
and added counsel and deed, in order that he could 
thereby live a good life and be his own master! In all 
of which he confesses that he did wrong. Also their 



242 Balthasar Hubmaier [ lSa7 - 

reason and object was to have no government, but only 
from their own number to draw out and elect one. 

"Again, the aforesaid Doctor Balthasar confesses that 
he does not at all believe in the sacrament of the altar 
nor in infant baptism. 

"Therefore, Doctor Balthasar, on account of this 
crime and condemned heresy is condemned to the fire. " ' 

Though urged to confess to a priest and receive 
the last rites of the Church before his death, Hub- 
maier steadfastly refused. On March ioth, he was 
led forth to his death, his wife (of whom it is related 
that "she was hardened in the same heresy, more 
constant than her husband ") exhorting him to for- 
titude. The story that he was borne through the 
streets to his execution on a cart, while his flesh was 
torn by red-hot pincers, does not rest on the best 
authority. We have the testimony of an eye-wit- 
ness 2 to his end, and the details are self-evidencing. 
As he was led to the place of execution, he from 
time to time repeated for his own consolation verses 
of Scripture, and remained to the last "fixed like an 
immovable rock in his heresy." He was accom- 
panied by an armed troop, and a large crowd, and 

1 Loserth, Beilage, No. 10. 

2 Stephan Sprugel, dean of the philosophical faculty in the Uni- 
versity of Vienna. Quoted by Loserth, pp. 185-187. 



i 5 28] The Martyr 243 

as he came to the pile of fagots he lifted up his voice 
and cried in the Swiss dialect : 

"0 gracious God, forgive my sins in my great 
torment. O Father, I give thee thanks that thou 
wilt to-day take me out of this vale of tears. With 
joy I desire to die and come to thee. O Lamb, 
Lamb, that takest away the sins of the world ! O 
God, into thy hands I commit my spirit." 

To the people he said, "O dear brothers, if I have 
injured any, in word or deed, may he forgive me 
for the sake of my merciful God. I forgive all 
those that have done me harm." 

While his clothes were being removed: "From 
thee also, O Lord, were the clothes stripped. My 
clothes will I gladly leave here, only preserve my 
spirit and my soul, I beseech thee." Then he 
added in Latin: "0 Lord, into thy hands I commit 
my spirit," and spoke no more in Latin. 

As they rubbed sulphur and gunpowder into his 
beard, which he wore rather long, he said, "Oh salt 
me well, salt me well." And raising his head, he 
called out: "O dear brothers, pray God that he 
will forgive me my guilt in this my death. I will 
die in the Christian faith." 






244 Balthasar Hubmaier [1527-1528] 

When the wood was kindled and he saw the fire, 
he said with a loud voice: "O my Heavenly Father, 
O my gracious God ! " As his hair and beard burned 
he cried out, "O Jesus, Jesus! " 

And then, overwhelmed with smoke, he breathed 
out his soul. The one who relates his death, no 
friendly and sympathetic observer, adds that he felt 
more joy than pain in thus witnessing his faith with 
his life. Three days later his devoted wife, with a 
great stone tied to her neck, constant to the very 
last in testifying to her faith, was thrown into the 
waters of the Danube. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MORAVIAN ANABAPTISTS 

TTUBMAIER'S death was popularly likened to 
* ■* that of John Hus, and like the Bohemian 
leader, he was regarded as an innocent martyr — we 
have the word of his friend Faber for that. The 
evangelical Christians mourned the loss of a man of 
light and leading; Catholics rejoiced that one of 
their most formidable opponents had been for ever 
silenced. The testimonies borne to the rank of 
Hiibmaier as an evangelical leader, praises of his 
learning and eloquence, are numerous, emphatic, 
and convincing. Kessler spoke of him as "the 
apxiKara^anriara of Nikolsburg," and he probably 
imagined that to be Greek, and to mean "chief 
Anabaptist." Vadian, the burgomaster of St. Gall, 
says that he was eloquentissimum sane et humanissi- 
mum virum (assuredly a very eloquent and culti- 
vated man). Bullinger describes him as wohl beredet 

245 



246 Balthasar Hubmaier 

und ziemlich belesen gewesen aber eines unstdten Ge- 
miitSy mit dem er hin und her fiel (a man of good 
repute and become tolerably well read, but of an 
unstable disposition, through which he was much 
misled). 1 

As to the estimate of him by the Roman Church, 
the letter of Faber, written to two of his friends on 
the very day of Hiibmaier's martyrdom, is a good 
example : 

11 As to Vienna, I can give you no news, except this 
one item: we must henceforth fight the plague of the 
Anabaptists. You already know how, after the destruc- 
tion of one of their heads, numerous others straightway 
grow up! So their Dr. Balthazar, who has been a long 
time in prison because of his heretical doctrines, has 
now suffered the death penalty. We ought to hope that 
a large part of the heretics will vanish from the earth, so 
soon as an example has been made of the man who was 
the head of the Anabaptists and the inspirer of other 
criminals." a 

This is, to be sure, but the opinion of one cleric; 
but the Roman Church showed its official estimate 



1 One of the Anabaptist chronicles speaks of him as in Latenische 
Grichischer und Hebraischer sprach wol erfaren. Beck, Geschichts- 
Bucher, p. 52. But we have seen reason to conclude that his ac- 
quirements in Greek and Hebrew were limited. 

2 Quoted by Loserth, p. 157. 




THE TOWER OF THE CASTLE AT NURNBERG, IN WHICH ANABAPTISTS 
WERE IMPRISONED. 



The Moravian Anabaptists 247 

of the importance of this heretic, and the dangerous 
quality of his influence, by putting his writings on 
the Index, along with those of Luther and Zwingli, 
as the most pestilent literature produced by the 
Reformation. 1 

It would be useless to deny that the death of such 
a man was a heavy blow to the Anabaptist cause in 
Moravia, and to the Nikolsburg church in particular, 
but it was by no means fatal. Lord Leonhardt 
Lichtenstein and his brother were permitted in due 
time to return to their estates, and apparently con- 
tinued their connection with the Anabaptists. It is 
certain that they could not be induced to do any- 
thing to persecute the brethren, even if they par- 
tially withdrew from them. But the death of 
Hiibmaier was the signal for active measures to be 
undertaken against all Anabaptists by Ferdinand's 
Government, which the Moravian nobles might do 
nothing actively to help, but which, on the other 



1 In the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, drawn up in 1619 for the 
Spanish Inquisition by Archbishop Bernhard of Sandoval, he is 
named four times : Balthasar Pacimontanus, Balthasar Hubmaier, 
Balthasar Hilcmerus, Balthasar Isubmarus. His name stands fourth 
among the hereticorum capita aut duces, preceded only by those of 
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Schwenckfeld is the only other heretic 
named. 



248 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

hand, they dared not openly oppose. At the same 
time, they did what they could to discourage the 
more extreme and fanatical among the Anabaptists, 
and thus lessen the pretext for severe measures 
against them ; though we do not again read of so 
energetic proceedings as the imprisonment of Hans 
Hut in the Nikolsburg Castle. 

As the danger of a Turkish invasion became 
more pressing, in the summer of 1528 it became 
more and more a practical question among the 
Nikolsburg brethren whether a Christian man could 
lawfully take up arms in self-defence, or pay a war- 
tax for defence against this foe. The party that 
had agreed with Hiibmaier became known as the 
Schwertler, or men of the sword ; while their oppo- 
nents were named the Stabler, or men of the staff, 
i. e. y of peace and non-resistance. Jacob Wide- 
mann was the leader of the Stabler, and gradually 
the idea of community of goods became even more 
important in their eyes than opposition to the 
sword. It was at length with them the doctrine 
of a standing or falling Church, since they were 
firmly convinced that a true Christian brotherhood 
could exist on no other basis. Peace was not so 



The Moravian Anabaptists 249 

much disturbed among the Nikolsburg brethren as 
made impossible, unless all would adopt the views 
of Widemann and make their practice conform 
thereto. 

Lord Lichtenstein used every effort to induce 
greater moderation on the part of the Stabler, and 
to restore unity in the brotherhood. He seems 
finally to have intimated that this faction must 
either be less contentious or leave his domains, and 
so they chose to leave. According to the chron- 
icle, he rode with them to the boundary, drank a 
parting glass with them, and wished them God- 
speed. They went their way to Austerlitz, — a town 
about thirty miles to the north, near Briinn, the 
capital of the province, — in later years the scene 
of one of Napoleon's great victories. Here they 
established themselves. 

The proprietors of Austerlitz were ready to wel- 
come them and to afford them entire liberty. It is 
even said that waggons were sent to meet them at 
the boundary, where they had been dismissed by 
Lord Lichtenstein, and to help them on their way. 
They were given permission to build houses 
and to live their lives in their own way; and the 



250 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

experiment of an Anabaptist community was forth- 
with begun. For some years they suffered no in- 
terference, and so the experiment was conducted 
under most favourable conditions. The nobles 
were glad to encourage them, for population was 
sparse, labour was scarce, and apart from their re- 
ligious notions the Anabaptists were known to be 
settlers of the most desirable sort, sober and indus- 
trious. The Austerlitz colony did not long remain 
the sole Anabaptist community : a colony soon 
went forth and settled at Auspitz, nearly midway 
between Nikolsburg and Austerlitz, and gradually 
others "swarmed," until there are said to have 
been by 1536 no fewer than eighty-six settlements, 
mostly numbering several hundred persons each, 
one being as large as two thousand. And in every 
case these communities seem to have enjoyed a 
uniform, steady prosperity. 

Socialistic ideas often found advocates during the 
Reformation period, but here in Moravia was the 
most conspicuous, if not the only, instance of a 
practical experiment in the working out of these 
ideas. Jacob Huter is credited with the chief part 
in the organisation of these Moravian communities, 



The Moravian Anabaptists 251 

for Widemann, though a born agitator and a 
would-be despot, proved himself to have no real 
gifts of leadership and organisation. Huter came 
to Moravia from the Tyrol soon after the establish- 
ment of the Austerlitz community, and for the next 
seven years spent much of his time there, perman- 
ently impressing his ideas of organisation on the 
communities. 

The unit of all these communities was the "house- 
hold," consisting in most cases of several hundred 
souls, all occupying a common building. Over each 
of these groups was a general superintendent, 
the "householder." The community idea was 
carried into all the details of living: the household 
had a common kitchen, a common bakehouse, a 
common brewhouse, a common schoolhouse, a 
common lying-in room, a common nursery, a com- 
mon sick-room, and an order of "sisters" were 
nurses of the children and the sick. There was also 
a common dining-room, but in other respects each 
family lived its own separate life. 1 Clothing and 

1 This " household " is an anticipation of the phalanstery of Four- 
rier, so complete in its details as almost to justify a suspicion that 
some account of these Moravian communities had become known to 
the French economist. 



25 2 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

bed-linen and such personal effects were treated as 
individual property, but all else was owned in com- 
mon. There must necessarily have been much 
interference with personal liberty under such a 
system. For example, marriage outside of the 
community was strictly forbidden and was punished 
by instant expulsion. The young sisters who 
manifested some reluctance to marrying the only 
eligible suitors were virtually compelled to matri- 
mony. 

Economically the experiment was successful — as 
to that the testimony is ample and unanimous. 
There were no drones allowed in these busy hives, 
and there was no poverty. The socialist ideal of 
equal effort by all, and equal sharing by all in the 
fruits of labour, was fully realised. Industry and 
frugality, together with good management, had 
their reward, and the communities without excep- 
tion became prosperous, not to say rich. It 
cannot be safely argued from this fact, however, 
that a general socialistic organisation of a na- 
tion would be economically successful; for these 
were a picked people in more respects than one, 
with much less than their due proportion of the 



The Moravian Anabaptists 253 

aged and disabled and incorrigibly lazy, and far 
more than their proportion of able and willing 
workers. 

Primarily these communities were agricultural. 
Their fields were the best cultivated and bore the 
largest crops in all the region. Moravia was then 
as now celebrated for its breed of horses, and those 
sent to market from these communities were es- 
teemed the best and brought the highest prices. 
Men from these households were sought by the 
landowners of the region as managers of their farms, 
stables, vineyards, mills. But though primarily 
agricultural, the communities were skilled in the 
handicrafts also, and in a little time gained almost 
a monopoly of certain manufactures — as tailors, 
smiths, weavers, they had no superiors. The knives, 
scythes, shoes, stockings, bolting-cloths, handker- 
chiefs, and similar wares sent forth from these 
centres of industry were highly esteemed and 
eagerly bought. They were known to be honest 
goods, at fair prices. 

Ecclesiastically, these communities differed from 
any others called Anabaptists. They had a chief 
pastor or bishop, an officer not found among others 



254 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

of the sect, and perhaps adopted from the Bohem- 
ian Brethren. Under this head there were in each 
community "ministers of the word" (generally, not 
necessarily, a plural eldership) and "ministers of 
necessities," or deacons. One of the ministers of 
the word was usually the "householder." Nobody 
might preach until he had been called to this office 
by the vote of the community, even though he had 
been an honoured preacher elsewhere, and this rule 
was rigidly enforced. The preacher was a man of 
much authority among them — indeed, he might 
easily become, and in too many cases actually was, 
a despot. 

But though economically prosperous, these com- 
munities cannot be regarded as in other respects 
a satisfactory realisation of the Anabaptist ideal. 
Nor did they realise their own ideal of a perfect 
brotherhood ; in proportion as the community pro- 
spered, the spirit of real brotherly love declined. 
Nowhere among Anabaptists, seldom anywhere 
among Christian people, has a more unlovely spirit 
developed. The selfish domineering of the "house- 
holder" preachers; the strife between those who 
wished to be preachers and those who, already 



The Moravian Anabaptists 255 

occupying that office, refused to share their power 
with others ; the murmurings and bickerings and 
jealousies among the members; the harsh intoler- 
ance shown to those who failed to abide by the 
community rules; the unchristian severity with 
which the excluded were treated — these and such- 
like things have seldom been paralleled, and they 
are the harder to forgive since they were done in 
the name of a more perfect Christian brotherhood. 
All Anabaptists seem disposed to a reckless use of 
the "ban," but these communities alone would, in 
Christ's name, expel an erring brother and leave 
him to starve, rather than give him food or drink. 
Their Roman Catholic persecutors were not more 
cruel to these "brothers" than they were to each 
other. 

The success of these socialistic Anabaptists, and 
the shelter given to them in Moravia for some years, 
led to a great immigration of the brethren from the 
surrounding regions. Historians, not too favour- 
ably inclined towards the sect, estimate the total 
membership of these groups as high as seventy 
thousand. 1 The noble landowners were glad to 

1 Hast, Geschichte der Wiedertdufer, p. 212. 



256 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

encourage their coming, for never had they been 
able to obtain labourers so satisfactory on their 
estates. Moravia was in that day, as in our own, 
one of the most fertile provinces of Austria, and 
it was experiencing a great access of prosperity in 
the growth of these Anabaptist communities. The 
testimony to the sober, law-abiding character of the 
people composing them is unbroken by any accusa- 
tion of offence, even from their bitterest foes, save 
the form of religion that they professed and prac- 
tised. This, however, was a continual offence, 
and the wonder is that they were unmolested so 
long. 

The downfall of the communities began in 1535. 
By that time Ferdinand was sufficiently freed from 
his various embarrassments, chiefly immediate fear 
of the Turk, to permit him to give serious attention 
to matters never long absent from his thoughts — 
first among them the clearing of his dominions of 
all heretics. A fierce persecution was begun in the 
Tyrol, that ended in the martyrdom of Jacob Huter 
at Innsbruck, February 24, 1536, and the destruc- 
tion or scattering of his followers. A simultaneous 
attempt was made to eject the Anabaptists from 




A ROOM IN THE TOWER AT NURNBERQ. 



The Moravian Anabaptists 257 

Moravia. A royal edict issued by Ferdinand in the 
spring of 1535 says: 

" It is a well-known fact that in the Netherlands the 
Anabaptists, committed to prison and held in subjection, 
have in the sequel begun to rebel against authority. 
Accordingly, neither Lutherans nor Zwinglians, nor, in 
fine, any sect, will suffer among them these heretics; it 
is, therefore, the will and intention of his Majesty not to 
suffer them any more in Moravia." 1 

Against their own wishes probably, against their 
own interests certainly, the Moravian nobles yielded 
to the royal command, and the Diet issued an order 
for the banishment of all Anabaptists. There was 
the less disposition to resist the royal policy, doubt- 
less, because of the excesses that the Anabaptists 
were now committing at Miinster. True, these 
people in Moravia had shown no such lawless and 
violent tendencies, but were they not also Anabap- 
tists? And what might they not do if they had 
the opportunity? The argument was, at any rate, 
sufficiently plausible to silence objections and quiet 
tender consciences, if such there were among the 
persecuting party. 

Quoted by Heath, Anabaptists, p. 75. Similar edicts, of various 
dates, are given in the chronicles. Beck, Geschichts-Biicher , p. 177 
etal. 
17 



258 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

The landlords, who had hitherto given these 
groups willing harbourage, were now obliged to 
withdraw their protection and give notice to the 
" households " to leave their domains at once. 
Vainly did the innocent victims protest against this 
injustice; the utmost concession they could obtain 
was permission to take with them their movable 
property. The decree was executed by military 
force, pitilessly, and these unfortunate people were 
compelled to abandon the homes they had built, 
even the harvests they had sown, and find refuge 
where they might, in a region where every Gov- 
ernment declared them outlaws. The dense forests 
of Moravia, the valleys in the mountains of Bohe- 
mia, gave them temporary hiding. 

But, though scattered, they did not scatter in 
panic or disorder ; there was a wise method in their 
flitting. They broke up into little groups, preserv- 
ing their organisation, and wherever one of these 
groups settled, there was the nucleus of a new com- 
munity. For a considerable time, therefore, though 
the persecution caused great personal distress and 
yet greater financial loss to the "households," it 
had little or no effect in diminishing their numbers. 



The Moravian Anabaptists 259 

In fact, according to their chronicles, their numbers 
actually increased under the stress of this trial. 
Their meekness and patience in bearing this great 
injustice doubtless had due effect on the people, and 
won converts from those who might otherwise have 
been untouched. 

In spite of the general spirit of meekness shown 
by them, there was one spirited protest against this 
cruel and unjust treatment. This took the form of 
a letter to Johann von Lipa, Marshal of Moravia, 
who had before this been one of their protectors, 
and had protested against the royal decree so long 
as protest was of any avail ; and who now found 
himself in the hateful predicament of being com- 
pelled to enforce a decree of banishment against a 
people with whom at heart he sympathised. This 
protest, though probably from the pen of Huter, is 
written in the name of the entire brotherhood, and 
is the only official apology of the Anabaptists of 
this period. 

"We brethren, who love God and his word, the true 
witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ, banished from many 
countries for the name of God and for the cause of divine 
truth, and have come hither to the land of Moravia, 
having assembled together and abode under your 



260 Balthasar Hubmaier 

jurisdiction, through the favour and protection of the 
Most High God, to whom alone be praise and honour and 
laud for ever: we beg you to know, honoured ruler of 
Moravia, that your officers have come to us and have de- 
livered your message and command, as indeed is well 
known to you. Already we have given a verbal answer, 
and now we reply in writing: viz., that we have forsaken 
the world, an unholy life, and all iniquity. We believe 
in Almighty God, and in his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who will protect us henceforth and forever in every 
peril, and to whom we have devoted our entire selves, 
our life, and all that we possess, to keep his command- 
ments, and to forsake all unrighteousness and sin. 
Therefore we are persecuted and despised by the whole 
world, and robbed of all our property, as was done 
aforetime to the holy prophets, and even to Christ him- 
self. By King Ferdinand, the prince of darkness, that 
cruel tyrant and enemy of divine truth and righteous- 
ness, many of our brethren have been slaughtered and 
put to death without mercy, our property seized, our 
fields and homes laid waste, ourselves driven into exile, 
and most fearfully persecuted. 

"After these things we came into Moravia, and for 
some time have dwelt here in quietness and tranquillity, 
under your protection. We have injured no one, we 
have occupied ourselves in heavy toil, which all men can 
testify. Notwithstanding, with your permission, we are 
driven by force from our possessions and our homes. 
We are now in the desert, in woods, and under the open 
canopy of heaven; but this we patiently endure, and 
praise God that we are counted worthy to suffer for his 
name. Yet for your sakes we grieve that you should 
thus so wickedly deal with the children of God. The 



The Moravian Anabaptists 261 

righteous are called to suffer; but alas! woe, woe to all 
those who without reason persecute us for the cause of 
divine truth, and inflict upon us so many and so great 
injuries, and drive us from them as dogs and brute 
beasts! Their destruction, punishment, and condemna- 
tion draw near, and will come upon them in terror and 
dismay, both in this life and in that which is to come. 
For God will require at their hands the innocent blood 
which they have shed, and will terribly vindicate his 
saints according to the words of the prophets. 

"And now that you have with violence bidden us 
forthwith to depart into exile, let this be our answer: 
We know not any place where we may securely live; 
nor can we longer dare remain here for hunger and fear. 
If we turn to the territories of this or that sovereign, 
everywhere we find an enemy. If we go forward, we 
fall into the jaws of tyrants and robbers, like sheep before 
the ravening wolf and the raging lion. With us are 
many widows, and babes in their cradle, whose parents 
that most cruel tyrant and enemy of divine righteous- 
ness, Ferdinand, gave to the slaughter, and whose 
property he seized. These widows and orphans and sick 
children, committed to our charge by God, and whom 
the Almighty has commanded us to feed, to clothe, to 
cherish, and to supply all their need, who cannot journey 
with us, nor, unless otherwise provided for, can long 
live — these we dare not abandon. We may not over- 
throw God's law to observe man's law, although it cost 
gold, and body and life. On their account we cannot 
depart; but rather than they should suffer injury we will 
endure any extremity, even to the shedding of our blood. 

"Besides, here we have houses and farms, the pro- 
perty that we have gained by the sweat of our brow, 



262 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

which in the sight of God and men are our just posses- 
sion: to sell them we need time and delay. Of this 
property we have urgent need in order to support our 
wives, widows, orphans and children, of whom we have 
a great number, lest they die of hunger. Now we lie in 
the broad forest, and if God will, without hurt. Let but 
our own be restored to us, and we will live as we have 
hitherto done, in peace and tranquillity. We desire to 
molest no one; not to prejudice our foes, not even King 
Ferdinand. Our manner of life, our customs and con- 
versation, are known everywhere to all. Rather than 
wrong any man of a single penny, we would suffer the 
loss of a hundred gulden; and sooner than strike our 
enemy with the hand, much less with the spear, or 
sword, or halbert, as the world does, we would die and 
surrender life. We carry no weapon, neither spear nor 
gun, as is clear as the open day; and they who say that 
we have gone forth by thousands to fight, they lie and 
impiously traduce us to our rulers. We complain of this 
injury before God and man, and grieve greatly that the 
number of the virtuous is so small. We would that all 
the world were as we are, and that we could bring and 
convert all men to the same belief; then should all war 
and unrighteousness have an end. 

We answer further: that if driven from this land there 
remains no refuge for us, unless God shall show us 
some special place whither to flee. We cannot go. This 
land, and all that is therein, belongs to the God of 
heaven; and if we were to give a promise to depart, per- 
haps we should not be able to keep it; for we are in the 
hand of God, who does with us what he wills. By him 
we were brought hither, and peradventure he would 
have us dwell here and not elsewhere, to try our faith 



The Moravian Anabaptists 263 

and our constancy by persecutions and adversity. But 
if it should appear to be his will that we depart hence, 
since we are persecuted and driven away, then, even 
without your command, not tardily but with alacrity, we 
will go whither God shall send us. Day and night we 
pray unto him that he will guide our steps to the place 
where he would have us dwell. We cannot and dare not 
withstand his holy will; nor is it possible for you, however 
much you may strive. Grant us but a brief space: per- 
adventure our heavenly Father will make known to us 
his will, whether we are to remain here, or whither we 
must go. If this be done, you shall see that no difficulty, 
however great it may be, shall deter us from the path. 

" Woe, woe, unto you, O ye Moravian rulers, who have 
sworn to that cruel tyrant and enemy of God's truth, 
Ferdinand, to drive away his pious and faithful servants! 
Woe, we say to you! who fear more that frail and mortal 
man than the living, omnipotent and eternal God, and 
chase from you, suddenly and inhumanely, the children 
of God, the afflicted widow, the desolate orphan, and 
scatter them abroad. Not with impunity will you do 
this; your oaths will not excuse you, or afford you any 
subterfuge. The same punishment and torments that 
Pilate endured will overtake you: who, unwilling to 
crucify the Lord, yet from fear of Caesar adjudged him 
to death. God, by the mouth of the prophet, proclaims 
that he will fearfully and terribly avenge the shedding of 
innocent blood, and will not pass by such as fear not to 
pollute and contaminate their hands therewith. There- 
fore great slaughter, much misery and anguish, sorrow, 
and adversity, yea, everlasting groaning, pain and tor- 
ment, are daily appointed you. The Most High will 
lift his hand against you, now and eternally. This we 



264 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

announce to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
for verily it will not tarry, and shortly you shall see that 
we have told you nothing but the truth of God, in the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are witnesses against 
you, and against all who set at nought his command- 
ments. We beseech you to forsake iniquity, and to turn 
to the living God with weeping and lamentation, that 
you may escape all these woes. 

" We earnestly entreat you, submissively and with 
prayers, that you take in good part all these our words. 
For we testify and speak what we know, and have 
learned to be true in the sight of God, and from that true 
Christian affection which we follow after before God and 
men. Farewell." , 

The fierceness of this persecution soon declined, 
since there was no adequate local sentiment to sus- 
tain it, but it was again renewed in 1547, and from 
this time to Ferdinand's death, in 1564, was a 
period of suffering known in the Anabaptist litera- 
ture as "the time of the great persecution." The 
reign of Maximilian II. (1 564-1 576) and the first 
half of his successor's reign (Rudolf II., 1 576-161 2) 
was a time of comparative freedom from molesta- 
tion, and is called in the chronicles "the good time 

1 This document is given by Ott, Annales Anabaptistici, pp. 75- 
78, and in several other collections of Anabaptist documents. There 
can be no doubt of its genuineness. The above translation, with 
some changes, is from the Martyrology of the Hanserd Knollys So- 
ciety, i., 149-153. 



The Moravian Anabaptists 265 

of the church." Once more their communities 
flourished, under the protection of the Moravian 
nobles, who successfully withstood the occasional 
demands of Austria's rulers that the Anabaptists 
should be driven out of the land. 

In the meantime Nikolsburg had continued to be, 
in some sort, the headquarters of the Anabaptists. 
The House of Lichtenstein had not ceased to grant 
them countenance and protection, so far as possible, 
nor is there any hint that Lord Leonhardt ever 
withdrew from the body. There does not seem to 
have been any radical change in the attitude of the 
House towards the brethren during the lifetime of 
his son, Christopher, though it is not known that 
the latter was a member of the body. The Lich- 
tensteins, and for the most part the other Moravian 
nobles, pretty uniformly returned a non possumus to 
all their monarch's edicts of persecution ; and, if 
they did not openly protest, their capacity for pass- 
ive resistance was practically unlimited. Unless 
the Austrian Government was prepared to send 
soldiers into Moravia, little could be done towards 
the dispersal of the Anabaptists. 

But with the death of Christopher von Lichten- 



266 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

stein, in 1572, a marked change came over Nikols- 
burg. He left no heir, 1 and the estates, therefore, 
reverted to the Crown; and in 1576 the Emperor 
sold them to Adam von Dietrichstein, whose de- 
scendants, subsequently raised to princely rank, 
still hold them. The new lord of Nikolsburg be- 
longed to a distinguished Romanist family, one of 
whom was later Bishop of Olmiitz and a Cardinal. 
It was not to be expected that a man of such ante- 
cedents, known himself to be an ardent Catholic, 
should tolerate in his domains those who were so 
much despised and contemned by the Church as 



1 A younger branch of the family remained Protestant through the 
sixteenth century, in spite of the severe persecutions to which all 
were subject who resisted the Roman Church. About 1604, Count 
Charles Lichtenstein became a convert to the Catholic faith, and 
was rewarded by being raised to the rank of Prince in 1608, and in 
1621 was made Regent of Bohemia. The family has ever since re- 
mained one of the most distinguished and powerful in Austria, and 
possesses large estates in various parts of the Empire. Only a few 
miles from Nikolsburg are the castles of Feldsburg and Eisgrub v 
still owned by Prince Liechtenstein (to use the modern orthography), 
the latter situated in the midst of a magnificent park of over a hun- 
dred square miles. The family has in recent years risen to royal 
rank, for since 1866 Liechtenstein has been an independent princi- 
pality — one of the smallest kingdoms in Europe, with an area of 
only sixty-five square miles and a population not exceeding ten 
thousand souls, situated between the Tyrol and Switzerland. But a 
king is a king, even if his kingdom is no larger than a pocket-hand- 
kerchief ! 



The Moravian Anabaptists 267 

the Anabaptists. Lord Adam proceeded to enforce 
his faith with energy and to root out of the town 
and the surrounding country all who were suspected 
of heresy. 

There were at this time in Nikolsburg and adja- 
cent towns 3720 persons known or reputed to be 
Anabaptists. A historian of the period records 
the success of Dietrichstein's efforts to purify the 
region. Nikolsburg had been the refuge of all sorts 
of pernicious heretics, who had so flourished as to 
give the town a bad name everywhere. It had 
passed into a proverb: "He is from Nikolsburg, 
therefore he is an Anabaptist." Dietrichstein 
brought to pass in a few years so great a change 
that it might be said with equal truth: "He is from 
Nikolsburg, therefore he is a Roman Catholic and 
Jesuit Christian." * 

This is, however, the usual and perhaps pardon- 
able exaggeration of the eulogist. The new lord, 
like the proverbial new broom, swept clean — as clean 
as he could — but he did not accomplish so com- 
plete an alteration in the character of Nikolsburg 



1 Christopher Erhard, in Sampt angetruckten Gesprach, Ingolstadt, 
1586, p. 31. Quoted by Loserth, Communist?ius t p. 55. 



268 Balthasar Hubmaier 

as the partial historian represents. His succes- 
sors were less given to the policy of "Thorough," 
and the Anabaptist chronicles contain proofs in 
plenty that these repressive measures were only 
partially effective. No longer could the brethren 
be said to flourish in Moravia, but they still en- 
dured. The seventeenth century, however, was to 
witness their all but complete destruction. The 
Jesuits had obtained the ear of the Austrian Court, 
and had established their emissaries in important 
ecclesiastical posts throughout Moravia. The mo- 
tive power for steady persecution was thus supplied ; 
against their persistent malignity and sleepless 
vigilance no heretics might long stand. 

In 1623 a new royal decree for the persecution of 
Anabaptists was issued through Cardinal Dietrich- 
stein, and from this time forward there was little 
intermission of severity. Prince Liechtenstein, now 
a Roman Catholic and Marshal of Moravia, was 
active in the work, which was part of the reaction- 
ary policy of the Thirty Years' War wherever the 
Austrian and Imperial power extended. In this 
terrific persecution many thousands perished — there 
is no adequate and trustworthy record of the num- 



The Moravian Anabaptists 269 

ber. A list in one of the chronicles, drawn up 
about 1 581, gives the number of martyrs among the 
brethren up to that time as 2169, but this is only 
a small fraction of the number who lost their lives 
for the truth's sake before the persecution was ended. 
Another chronicle thus describes their sufferings : 

" Some were torn to pieces on the rack, some were 
burned to ashes and powder, some were roasted on 
pillars, some were torn with red-hot tongs, some were 
shut up in houses and burned in masses, some were 
hanged on trees, some were executed with the sword, 
some were plunged in the water, many had gags put into 
their mouths so that they could not speak and were thus 
led away to death. Like sheep and lambs, crowds of 
them were led away to be slaughtered and butchered. 
Others were starved or allowed to rot in noisome prisons. 
Many had holes burned through their backs and were 
left in this condition. Like owls and bitterns they dared 
not go abroad by day, but lived and crouched in rocks 
and caverns, in wild forests, in caves and pits. Many 
were hunted down with hounds and catchpoles." 

By means of such measures, the number of Ana- 
baptists in Moravia was sensibly decreased ; most of 
the brotherhood who survived these fiery trials 
found a home elsewhere. The depopulation of the 
country, owing mainly to these persecutions, was 
so frightful that the Diet passed a special statute 



2 jo Balthasar Hubmaier 

giving to every man in Moravia the extraordinary- 
privilege of taking two wives, that the country 
might be repeopled ! ' Nevertheless, even so a 
remnant of the brethren survived and continued to 
live in the province, in ever-diminishing numbers, 
for at least a century longer. Some found refuge in 
Bohemia and Hungary, where a few colonies are 
said to survive until this day. One group made 
their way into southern Russia, where they re- 
mained until 1874, when they emigrated in a body 
to South Dakota, and there, in several communities, 
they seem to be renewing their former prosperity. 
Even in Moravia itself it is doubtful when they be- 
came entirely extinct, for traces of them were found 
by Dr. Beck as late as the year 181 5 ; but no com- 
munity is known to exist there now. 8 

In the sequel, therefore, we see the almost com- 
plete destruction of the fabric that Hubmaier and 
his associates reared with so great effort and at so 
costly sacrifice. The traces of them and their 

1 Encyclopedia Britannica, art. " Moravia," historical sketch. 

2 It has not been thought necessary to give authorities for most of 
the several statements of this chapter. The materials are derived, 
about equally, from Loserth's continuation of his biography of Hub- 
maier, Der Communismus der Mahrischen Wiedertdufer ; Wien, 
1894, and Beck's Geschichts-Biicher* 



The Moravian Anabaptists 271 

labours disappeared as utterly as the wake of a ves- 
sel in the ocean. Shall we, therefore, declare that 
they lived and laboured in vain? Did such as Hiib- 
maier give their lives for naught ? Not so. Hiib- 
maier's contribution to the gradual progress of the 
truth, to the slow emancipation of man, to the final 
triumph of religious and civil liberty, was not only 
considerable but lasting. His name, his example, 
and his teachings were long cherished by the 
brotherhood ; and when his name and example had 
faded from recollection, his teachings lived on. In 
an age of credulity and superstition he stood for 
the gospel proclaimed by the Apostles. Among 
people groaning under the exactions of an effete 
feudalism and oppressed by despotic and selfish 
princes, he advocated justice and mercy on the part 
of rulers, sobriety and obedience on the part of 
subjects. At a time when intolerance and persecu- 
tion were universal, his was the voice of one crying 
in the wilderness for restoration of the God-given 
right of every man to study the Scriptures for him- 
self, and to follow whithersoever they might lead. 

"TRUTH IS IMMORTAL" 



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FACSIMILE OF HUBMAIER'S FIRST APPEAL TO THE COUNCIL OF SCHAFFHAUSEN. 

ORIGINAL IN THE SCHAFFHAUSEN ARCHIVES. 






APPENDIX 

ON THE SWORD 

A Christian exposition of the Scriptures, earnestly 
announced by certain brothers as against magistracy 
(that is, that Christians should not sit in judgment, nor 
bear the sword). 



18 

273 



To the noble and Christian Lords, Arekleb of Boz- 
kowitz and Tzernehor of Trebitz, Chancellor of 
the Margravate of Moravia, my gracious Lords, 
Grace and peace in God. 
Noble, gracious Lord, your Grace well knows that all 
those who in these last perilous times hold dear and 
preach the holy gospel, must not only be deprived of 
goods, but be tortured in body, yea, must even be wounded 
in honour {which to men is the most precious jewel on 
earth) and be oppressed by the godless. Even the 
weapons of the hellish Satan are here, through which 
he attempts without cessation to oppress, blot out and 
burden evangelical teaching and truth. Yet he will 
not succeed, his head must be bruised. Especially 
also must it be charged now by such servants of the 
devil, that all Christian preachers are rioters, seducers, 
and heretics, since they repudiate magistracy and 
teach disloyal doctrines. And yet this is not a cause 
for wonder. The same thing also happened to Christ, 
although he openly preached, "Render to CcBsar the 
things that are Caesar 1 s" {when he paid the tribute for 
himself and for Peter). Notwithstanding, he was com- 
pelled to suffer back-breaking pains by liars, since he 
was reported a rioter and accused as a disturber of the 
people, whom he had forbidden to give the tribute- 
money to the Emperor. When the like now happens 
to us, what difference does it makef The servant is 

275 



276 Balthasar Hubmaier 

not more than his lord, and the disciple is not more 
than his master. If they have persecuted the master 
of the house, much more will they do it to us. But 
that your Grace may learn and know, what from the 
beginning I have always and everywhere held con- 
cerning the magistracy, how I also openly preached in 
the pulpit at Waldshut and elsewhere, 1 as well as wrote 
and frequently taught {without any boast be it said) and 
how much I suffered for it from my opponents, who 
falsely charged many other things against me; — / have 
composed a small book in which your Grace may learn 
thoroughly my opinion, and elucidated in general all 
writings which my antagonists have hitherto with much 
zeal charged to forbid magistracy among Christians. 
Such a tract your Grace will receive graciously from me, 
and briefly note my sentiments concerning Christian 
magistracy in the contents of the writings. Since I 
always, in this and my other teachings and deeds, desire 
justice and right, if I err I will gladly permit myself to 
be banished and punished, as is just. But, according 
to the Scripture, let them bear witness against the evil; 
but if I err not, wherefore do they smite me, wherefore 
do they brand met For though my enemies (of whom 
I have as many as the old scaly serpent) are never 
willing to let me be justly judged, I am not so. If my 
God and Lord must suffer that they do offence and vio- 
lence to his word, I must also suffer, yet (God be 
praised) not as an evil-doer. Let every one judge as he 



1 I have more earnestly held with the Scripture concerning the 
pious magistracy, than any preacher within twenty miles. But I 
have also charged tyrants with their crime, whence arises their envy, 
hatred and enmity. — Marginal note by Hubmaier. 



On the Sword 277 

desires to be judged by the Lord. Well ! since it is the 
will of God, on account of our sins, therefore I must 
and will, even against my will, fashion my will. Here- 
with, your Grace and my especially gracious Lord, I 
give myself submissively in all service for all time. 
Your Grace, farewell in Christ Jesus. 
Given at Nicolspurg on the 24th day of June, 1527. 
Your Grace's obedient 

Balthasar Huebmdr of Fridberg. 



ON THE SWORD 



THE FIRST PASSAGE 



Christ says to Pilate, ' ' My kingdom is not of this world ; if it 
were of this world my servants would doubtless fight for me, that I 
should not be delivered to the Jews." — John xviii., 36. 

From this Scripture many brothers say, "A Christian 
may not bear the sword, since the kingdom of Christ is 
not of this world." Answer : If these people would use 
their eyes aright, they would say a very different thing, 
namely, that our kingdom should not be of this world. 
But with sorrow we lament before God that it is of this 
world, as we testify when we offer the Lord's Prayer, 
" Father, thy kingdom come." For we are in the king- 
dom of the world, which is a kingdom of sin, death and 
hell. But Father, help thou us out of this kingdom ; we 
stick in it clear over ears, and shall not be freed from 
it till the end; it clings to us even in death. Lord, for- 
give us this evil, and help us home into v thy kingdom! 
Yet such brothers must see and confess the truth, that 
our kingdom is of this world, which should cause us 
heartfelt sorrow. But Christ alone could say with truth, 
" My kingdom is not of this world," since he was con- 
ceived and born without sin, a lamb without blemish, in 
whom is no deceit, but without sin and any spot. He 
alone with truth might also say, " The prince of this 

279 



280 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

world has come, and has found nothing in me," which 
we here on earth can nevermore speak with truth. For 
as often as the prince, the devil, comes he finds in us 
wicked lust, wicked desire, wicked longing. Whence 
also St. Paul, now filled with the Holy Ghost, yet calls 
himself a sinner [Rom. vii., 15-25]. Therefore all pious 
and godly Christians must confess themselves unholy 
even till death, whatever we may do of ourselves. 

THE SECOND PASSAGE 

» Jesus says to Peter : " Put up thy sword in its place, for he who 
taketh the sword shall perish by the sword. Or thinkest thou that I 
could not pray to my Father, and he would send me more than 
twelve legions of angels ? But how would the Scripture be fulfilled, 
that it must be thus?" — Matt, xxvi., 53, 54. 

Mark here well, pious Christian, the word of Christ, 
so will you have an answer to the accusation of the 
brothers. First Christ says, " Put your sword into its 
place," he does not forbid you to bear it. You are not 
in authority; it is not your appointed place, nor are you 
yet called or elected thereto. " For who takes the sword 
shall perish with the sword." The sword means those 
who act without election, disorderly, and of their own 
authority. But no one shall take the sword himself, ex- 
cept one who has been elected and appointed thereto; for 
so he does not take it of himself, but it has been brought 
to him and given him. Now he may say, " I have not 
taken the sword. I would rather go unemployed, since 
I am myself not very stern. But since I am chosen 
thereto, I pray God that he will give me grace and wis- 
dom that I may bear it and rule according to his word 
and will." So Solomon prayed and was given great 
wisdom by God to bear the sword well. Besides, do 



On the Sword 281 

you hear this: Christ said to Peter, " Put up thy sword 
in its sheath." He did not say, Put it away, throw it 
from thee. For Christ blames him because he seeks it 
first, and not because he has it at his side — otherwise he 
would have blamed him long before, if that were wrong. 

It follows further: " Who takes the sword shall perish 
by the sword," that is, he is brought under the judgment 
of the sword. Though he may not wish it, he will always 
be judged by the sword for his fault. Do you mark 
here how Christ sanctions the sword, that they shall pun- 
ish with it, and suppress self-constituted authority and 
wickedness? And that they shall do who are elected for 
the purpose, whoever they are. Hence it is evident that 
if men are pious, good and orderly, they will bear the 
sword for the protection of the innocent, according to 
the will of God, and for a terror to evil-doers, according 
as God has appointed and ordained. 

In the third place, Christ said to his disciples, when 
they asked him wherefore he was going to Jerusalem 
when the Jews had wished before to stone him: "Are 
there not twelve hours in the day? " As if he had said, 
They will not kill me until the twelfth hour comes, that 
is, the one ordained of God for my death, which Christ 
also calls the hour of darkness. But when the same 
twelfth hour was come, Christ said to his disciples, near 
the Mount of Olives, "Sleep on and take your rest. 
The hour is here that I should be given to death, in 
order that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Mark, 
Peter hears that the appointed and fore-ordained hour 
of God had come, yet he would oppose, and draws the 
sword of his own authority. That was the greatest 
[error]. Therefore Christ speaks: There is no use in 
protecting and guarding me further. The hour foreseen 



282 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

by God is here, and even if there were twelve legions of 
angels here they might not help me against the will of my 
Heavenly Father. Therefore put up [thy sword] ; it is 
useless. I have already said to you, the hour is here; 
the Scripture shall and must be fulfilled. 

From that every Christian learns that one should not 
cease to protect and guard all pious and innocent men, 
so long as he does not certainly know that even now the 
hour of their death is here. But when the hour comes, 
whether you know it or not, you can no longer protect 
and guard them. Therefore the magistrate is bound by 
his soul's salvation to protect and guard all innocent and 
peaceful men, until a certain voice of God comes and is 
heard to say, Now shalt thou no longer protect this man 
— as Abraham also heard a voice that he should slay his 
son, contrary to the commandment, Thou shalt not kill. 
Therefore the magistrate is also bound to rescue and re- 
lease all oppressed and persecuted men, widows, orphans, 
whether known or strangers, without any respect of per- 
sons, according to the will and most earnest command of 
God (Is. i., 17; Jer. xxi., 12; xxii., 3; Rom. xiii., 1; 
and many other passages) until they are called by God 
to something else, which they will not need to wait for 
long. Therefore God has hung the sword at their side 
and given it to his disciples. 

THE THIRD PASSAGE 

" Lord, wilt thou that we command that fire from heaven fall and 
consume them, as Elijah did. But Jesus turned to them and rebuked 
them, and said, Ye know not what spirit ye are of. The Son of 
man is come not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." — Luke 
ix., 54, 55- 

Here my brothers make a great outcry, as if the devil 
were there, and say, "Now you see, Balthasar, that 



On the Sword 283 

Christ did not wish to punish with fire. And so we 
ought not to do it, nor should we use fire, water, sword 
or gallows." Answer: Look further, dear brothers, 
where Christ comes to the end, [and see] what was the 
authority and command given him by God. Consider 
also therewith what is the power of superiors. Do that 
and you shall already have an answer. Christ is come, 
as he himself says, not to judge men, condemn them 
or punish them with fire, water or the sword. He did not 
become man for that. But his command and authority 
was to make men hold with the word ; that power he had 
received when he became man. So he says himself 
(Luke xii., 14), "Who has made me a judge between 
you and your brother?" As if he had said, You may 
find another judge. I am not here for that purpose, that 
I should seize another power and command over you. 
On the contrary, the power and authority of the magis- 
trate is given by God, that he should protect and guard 
the pious, and punish the wicked and destroy them; 
therefore has he hung the sword at their side, and since 
it is at their side they must use it. Now God always 
punishes the wicked, perhaps with hail, rain or sickness, 
and also through certain men who have been appointed 
and chosen thereto. Wherefore Paul calls the magistrate 
a " minister " of God. For what God might do of him- 
self he often wills to do through his creatures, as through 
his instrument. 

Yes, and although the devil, Nebuchadnezzar and 
many other wicked men are also called in Scripture 
servants of God, still it is far otherwise with an orderly 
government, when according to the command of God it 
punishes the wicked for the good of the pious and inno- 
cent. But the devil and his crew do nothing for the 



284 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

good or peace of men, but everything to their injury and 
hurt, in an envious and vindictive spirit. But the gov- 
ernment has a special sympathy with all those who have 
transgressed; it wishes from the heart that it had not 
happened; while the devil and his followers wish that all 
men were unfortunate. Do you see, then, brothers, how 
far separated from one another are these two kinds of 
servants, the devil and orderly government? How also 
Christ wished to exercise his power on earth? Even so 
ought we to exercise our power and calling, whether in 
government or in obedience, for we must give an account 
for it to God at the last day. 

THE FOURTH PASSAGE 

" One of the people spoke to the Lord, Master, say to my brother 
that he divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, 
who appointed me a judge or divider over you?" — Luke xii., 13, 14. 

Here these brothers of mine cry out to Heaven, but 
too noisily, and say, " Hearest thou, Fridberger? Christ 
will not be a judge or divider. Judgment and court are 
forbidden by Christ; therefore the upright Christian 
should not be a judge, nor sit in the court nor bear the 
sword, for Christ did not wish to be a judge or divider 
between the two brothers." Answer : Hold up on your 
crying, dear brothers, you do not know the Scripture, 
therefore you are wrong and do not know what you are 
crying. Christ says, Man, who has appointed me a judge 
or divider over you? That is not my office; it belongs 
to another. Mark that: Christ does not condemn the 
office of judge, since it is not to be condemned, as will 
shortly follow. But he shows this, that no one should 
undertake to be a judge who has not been appointed and 



On the Sword 285 

chosen thereto. Thence comes the election of burgo- 
masters, mayors, judges, all of whom Christ permits to 
remain, if with God and a good conscience they rule well 
over temporal and corporeal affairs. But he was not 
willing himself to assume it; he did not become man for 
that purpose, and he was not appointed thereto. In like 
manner also, no one should use the sword, until he is 
regularly elected for that purpose, or called in some other 
way by God, as Moses, between the Israelites and 
Egyptians [Ex. iii., 10], Abraham for the deliverance of 
his brother Lot [Gen. xiv., 14-17], and Phinehas against 
the unclean [Num. xxv., 7-9]. 

THE FIFTH PASSAGE 

" If any man wisheth to bring thee before the court, and take thy 
coat from thee, let him have thy cloak also." — Matt, v., 40. 

THE SIXTH PASSAGE 

" It is already a defect among you that you have law-suits with 
each other. Wherefore do you not much rather let yourselves be 
wronged ? Wherefore do you not much rather suffer wrong and be 
defrauded ? But you do injustice and defraud, and such things to 
your brothers." — I Cor. vi., 7, 8. 

These two passages are announced by the brothers in 
so lofty and anxious a way, as if they believed they ought 
to offer themselves to the fire — a Christian may not be a 
judge. Well, we will search the Scriptures, thus we shall 
find a good answer. Suits, quarrels, complaints and 
wranglings before council or court, if one seeks them 
himself, are not right, as the aforesaid two passages very 
clearly show. But that, when the parties wish to go to 
law, a Christian may not without sin be a judge or decide 
justly between them, is not declared in the sixth chapter 



286 Balthasar Hubmaier 

of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. For Paul writes: 
"How does any among you, if he has a complaint against 
another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before 
the saints? (that is, before Christians). Do ye not know 
that the saints will judge the world? If then the world 
will be judged by you, are ye not good enough to judge 
trifles? Know ye not that ye will judge the angels, how 
much more temporal affairs? If now ye have law-suits 
over affairs, name the most despised in the church and 
set the same to judge. To your shame I say that. Is 
it so indeed that there is no wise man among you, or not 
a single one who can judge between brother and brother, 
but a brother permits himself to go to law with another, 
even before the unbelievers? " 

Hear Paul now, dear brothers, and see. If Christians 
wish to go to law over affairs, that is, over temporal goods, 
which is quite wrong, they should yet seek to be judged 
by a Christian and not by an unbeliever. Mark here, 
brothers, you have skipped over that. If Christians wish 
to go to law and not to be at peace with each other, they 
sin yet more, yea, they doubly sin, if they take their case 
before an unbelieving judge and not before a Christian. 
Therefore Paul mocks the Corinthians and says, " If ye 
will go to law, ye should choose the most despised among 
you to judge." He says that to them for their shame, 
since it is reasonable that they should be ashamed if they 
had not among them any pious and wise Christians, who 
might decide justly between them, but must run for an 
unbelieving judge. 

Now a blind man can see, that a Christian may pro- 
perly and with a good conscience sit in court and coun- 
cil, and judge and decide about temporal cases; although 
the wranglers and disputants sin, yet they sin more if 



On the Sword 287 

they take their cases before the unbelieving judge. If a 
Christian therefore may and should in the power of the 
divine word, be a judge with the mouth, he may also be 
a protector with the hand of him who wins the suit, and 
punish the unjust. For whoso shall judge righteousness 
ought not to hesitate to execute and fulfil punishment 
against the malicious. Who soles a shoe, if he dare not 
put it on? See, dear brothers, that councils, courts, and 
law are not wrong. 

Thus also the judge may and should be a Christian, 
although the contending parties sin, because they do not 
much rather permit themselves to suffer wrong. There- 
fore a Christian may also, according to the ordinance of 
God, bear the sword, in the place of God, against the 
evil-doer and punish him. Though he is for the sake of 
the evil, he is also ordained by God for the protection 
and defence of the pious (Rom. xiii., 3, 4). Thus will 
the Scripture be true where it says: " You have an office 
not of men but of God; what you judge he decrees above 
you. Therefore shall the fear of God be with you, and 
you shall act with diligence, for God cannot see nor for- 
give iniquity " (2 Chron. xix., 6, 7). This Scripture 
is given to us as well as to the ancients, since it pertains 
to brotherly love. Do you say, Well, but is it not our 
duty not to go to law? Answer : Yes. We ought not to 
do anything wrong. Therefore it is always the duty of 
every Christian, should he ever be appointed a judge, to 
administer justice to citizens and foreigners. That must 
follow, or the Scripture must be broken to pieces, which 
no man can ever accomplish. 

THE SEVENTH PASSAGE 

" If thy brother sin against thee, go and rebuke him between thee 
and him alone. If he heareth thee, thou hast won thy brother. If he 



288 Balthasar Hubmaier 

heareth thee not, take with thee one or two, so that all things may 
be established from the mouth of two or three witnesses. If he will 
not hear, tell it to the church. If he will not hear the church, hold 
him as a heathen and publican." — Matt, xviii. , 15-17. 

From this passage the brothers raise a grievous outcry 
against me and say: " If a magistrate were allowable 
among Christians, then the Christian excommunication 
would come to nothing and be disused. For when one 
punishes the evil-doer with the sword, the church may 
not use the ban." Answer : Excommunication and pun- 
ishment with the sword are two very different commands 
given by God. The first is promised and given to the 
church by Christ (Matt, x., 14; xviii., 18; John xx., 
23), for the admission of the pious into their fellowship 
and the exclusion of the unworthy, to use according to its 
will. So, whatsoever sins of men the Christian church 
forgives on earth, the same are surely forgiven also in 
heaven; and what sins are not forgiven here on earth the 
same are not remitted in heaven. 

Since Christ delivered, entrusted and committed to his 
bride, the Christian church, his command to loose and 
bind in his bodily absence, as he had received it from 
his Father, therefore the Christian church may and shall 
in the meantime teach the people all that Christ has com- 
manded her to teach. Also she has the authority and 
power to sign all men with the water-baptism, if they are 
willing to receive, believe, and order their lives by such 
doctrine, and to inscribe and receive them in her holy 
fellowship. For all that she rules and governs on earth, 
the same is done, performed, delivered and finished in 
heaven also. At some distant day this Christ, her Bride- 
groom, will come again in corporeal and visible form, in 
his glory and majesty, and will take again in person his 



On the Sword 289 

kingdom, until he shall deliver it up to his Heavenly 
Father, as Paul writes (i Cor. xv., 24), until God shall 
be all in all. Even that is the secret [mystery] in Christ 
and his Church, according to the contents of the letter 
to the Ephesians, chapter v. 

The other command relates to the external and tem- 
poral authority and government, which originally was 
given by God to Adam after his fall, when he said to 
Eve, " Under the man's authority shalt thou be, and 
he shall rule over thee " (Gen. iii., 16). If now Adam 
was set in authority over his Eve, then he received 
authority over all flesh that should be borne by Eve in 
pain. In like manner also God entrusted the sword to 
certain other god-fearing men, for example, to Abraham, 
Moses, Joshua, Gideon and Samuel. After that the 
wickedness of men increased and became overflowing, 
yea, the bulk of it became rampant. The people at one 
time demanded from Samuel a king and abandoned God. 
The same king, at the command of God, Samuel gave 
them; and they thereby became bound to endure the 
royal authority and subjection that the king exercised 
thereafter, for their sins, since they had despised and 
abandoned God and had earnestly demanded from Sam- 
uel and not from God a king, like the other nations. 
Such subjection and burden we must and shall now day 
by day suffer, endure and bear, obediently and willingly; 
also give and render tribute to whom tribute belongs, tax 
to whom tax belongs, fear to whom fear belongs, honour 
to whom honour belongs. 

And for this our sins are to blame, as the sins of Eve 
that she must bring forth in pain, and as the sins of 
Adam, that he must eat his bread in the sweat of his 
face. For if we were pleased to be obedient to God and 



290 Balthasar Hubmaier 

pious, there would be against us no law, sword, fire, 
stocks or gallows. But since we have continually- 
sinned, it must and will be so, and neither rebellion nor 
anything else can deliver us therefrom. For God's word 
is Yea and not Nay. But if we heap disobedience upon 
disobedience, and increase sins with sins, in his wrath 
God will give us kings, and children for princes, yea, he 
will let the effeminate rule over us, and if we try to 
escape Rehoboam we shall run into the hands of Jero- 
boam. All this befalls us because of our sins, according 
to the common and true proverb, " Like people, like 
king." "A stork gobbles up the frogs, who were not 
willing to recognise and receive as king the harmless 
log." 

Wherefore, it is most necessary, O pious Christians, 
with greatest diligence and most earnest devotion to pray 
Almighty God for a pious, just and Christian govern- 
ment on earth, under which we may live a peaceful and 
quiet life, in all godliness and honesty. When God 
gives us such, we ought to receive it with special thank- 
fulness. If he does not give, it is certain that we are 
not worthy of another and better, because of our sins. 
Of this case the Bible in the Old Testament gives us 
many histories as examples. 

See now, dear brothers, that these two offices and 
commands, of the ban and the secular sword, are not 
opposed to each other, since they are both from God. 
For the Christian ban frequently has place and authority, 
as for example in many spiritual offences against which 
the sword may by no means be used, when according 
to the occasion of the sin there should be punishment. 
That Christ teaches us very clearly, when he says to the 
adulterous woman: "Woman, hath none condemned 



On the Sword 291 

thee?" She says, "No one, Lord." He answers, 
" Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more." 
Mark: Christ says, Woman hath no one condemned 
thee? As if he would have said, If condemnation had 
fallen on thee, according to the law of God announced 
for adultery, I should say nothing to the judge, for it is 
the commandment of God my Father, that they shall 
stone the adulterer. But since no one has condemned 
thee, neither will I condemn thee, for it is not my office. 
I have not been appointed a judge but a Saviour. 
Therefore go hence and sin no more. That is my 
office, to forgive sins and to command that men walk no 
more in sins. Hear then, dear brothers, how Christ so 
properly exercises his own office, and lets the judicial 
office stand at its own value. So must the Church also 
do with its ban, and the government with its sword, and 
neither usurp the other's office. 

THE EIGHTH PASSAGE 

44 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Eye for eye and tooth for 
tooth. But I say to you, Resist not evil, but if one give thee a 
blow on thy right cheek, turn the other also." — Matt, v., 38, 39; 
Luke vi., 29. 

This Scripture is cited by the brothers as proudly as if 
they meant that according to it magistrates must un- 
buckle the sword if they wish to be Christians. But 
make room, don't be in too much hurry, dear friends, 
and hear, you who wish to handle the Scriptures aright. 
"You have heard it hath been said (in the Old Testa- 
ment, that is to say), Eye for eye and tooth for tooth." 
Therefore, when one comes and accuses another before 
the judge, that he has struck out an eye or tooth (that 
such charges were allowed to the ancients you will find 



292 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

in the fifth book of Moses, in the first chapter) 1 the 
judge must hear the complaint and testimony, and ad- 
judge eye for eye and tooth for tooth, according to the 
law of God. But in the New Testament it is not to be 
done in that way, but if one smites thee on the right 
cheek, do not complain of him, run for no judge, ask no 
vengeance, as it was permitted to them of old, but turn 
the other also. For to complain is always forbidden to 
Christians, as you have heard in 1 Cor. vi., 7. If now 
you suffer and do not injure, you do the business right, 
for so has Christ specially taught each one to do. But 
the magistrate is not therefore to unbuckle the sword. 
Nay, he is much more commanded (if such mischief or 
injury should happen among themselves or other people) 
to protect the pious and punish the wicked with the 
sword, — for that he is appointed a servant of God, to 
the good for peace, to the evil for fear. Therein he 
does the will of God. 

Likewise, although the two contestants about worldly 
goods sin before the judge, the Christian judge does not 
sin when he judges the quarrel justly. So even if no one 
makes a complaint, but the magistrate knows that one 
has done another violence and wrong, he should none 
the less perform his commanded office, and pronounce 
just judgment and punish the offender. For so he bears 
not the sword in vain. Thus there is a higher standard 
\staffel, position] in the New Testament than in the Old, 
that he who is injured and damaged does not complain, 
and yet the magistrate punishes. In the Old Testament 
the injured complains and the judge punishes. See, 
dear brothers, how the thirteenth chapter of Romans 

1 The reference is to Deut. i., 16-18, but Ex. xxi., 24, and Lev. 
xxiv., 20, are more to the point. — Tr. 



On the Sword 293 

must correspond with the afore-mentioned word of 
Christ; for, if we put the two passages together one goes 
well with the other. 

THE NINTH PASSAGE 

" So stand now, your loins girt with the girdle of truth, and hav- 
ing put on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with 
the preparation of the gospel of peace ; in addition to all, having 
grasped the shield of faith, with which ye will be able to quench all 
the fiery darts of the evil one ; and take up the helmet of salvation, 
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." — Eph. vi., 

14-17. 

THE TENTH PASSAGE 

" The weapons of our knighthood are not carnal, but mighty be- 
fore God to the destruction of strongholds, wherewith we destroy the 
device and every high thing that lifts itself against the knowledge of 
God." — 2 Cor. x., 4, 5. 

But here the brothers run up and cry very greatly: 
"There, you see what the harness and weapon of the 
Christian should be, not made of iron or long wood; but 
the gospel, the gospel, faith, faith, the word of God, the 
word of God, shall be our sword and weapon. Paul 
forsooth is able to scour our harness, to furbish up well 
our Christian weapons; other preparations are all of the 
devil." A?iswer : Stop running, dear brothers, and mark 
what I will say in entire peace. First, I find it thus in 
the Scriptures. Paul speaks to us in these words to the 
Ephesians of one sword, and of another to the Romans, 
ch. xiii. Now tell me, whether here and there one sword 
or two are written about? You cannot say with truth, 
dear brothers, that he has written of one sword. For to 
the Ephesians and Corinthians Paul speaks of a spiritual 
sword, and says himself, "It is the word of God, with 
which one shall destroy that which lifts itself against the 



294 Balthasar Hubmaier 

knowledge of God." So again he writes to the Romans 
of a temporal sword, which one bears at his side, with 
which he frightens the evil-doer, who cannot be fright- 
ened or punished with the word of God. Now if there 
are two swords, of which one belongs to the soul, the 
other to the body, you must let them both remain in 
their worthiness, dear brothers. 1 

In the second place, I beg, for the love of God, that 
you will read eleven lines before that passage from the 
Ephesians that you quote. Then you will certainly see 
and hear that Paul there describes the harness, sword 
and preparation, which we are to use against the devil, 
for the protection of the soul, and not the sword that men 
use against evil men, here upon earth, such as do harm 
to the innocent in goods, body and life. Now go on to 
read, and the truth will be disclosed to you from the 
lesson, when the text says: " Finally, my brethren, make 
yourselves strong in the Lord, and in the might of his 
strength. Put on the armour of God, that ye may be 
able to stand against the wily assaults of the devil. For 
we have not to do battle with flesh and blood, but with 
princes and authorities, with the world-rulers of the 
darkness in this world, with the spirits of wickedness 
under heaven," etc. 

Mark here, dear friends; if your hearts were right, 
you would say, There are two kinds of swords in the 
Scriptures; one spiritual, which we are to use against the 
wily assaults of the devil, as Christ has commanded us 
against Satan (Matt, iv., i-ii). That is the word of 
God. Yes, of that sword Paul speaks here to the 
Ephesians and Corinthians what Christ himself says, " I 

1 The meaning plainly is, you must let each remain in its proper 
place. — Tr. 



On the Sword 295 

have not come to send peace but a sword " (Matt, x., 
34). Besides there is a temporal sword, which is borne 
for the protection of the pious, and for the frightening 
of the wicked here on earth. With that the magistrate 
is girded, that he may with it preserve the peace of the 
land, and it will also be called a spiritual sword when it 
is used according to the will of God. These two swords 
are not opposed to each other. 

Thirdly, inasmuch as Paul teaches that we should 
pray for the government, that under it we may live a 
peaceable and quiet life with each other in all godliness 
and honesty, I ask one question of you all, brothers, in 
a lump: Would a believing or an unbelieving magistrate 
be wise and skilful to preserve his people in such a 
peaceful, quiet, godly and honest life? You must, must, 
must always confess that a Christian magistrate will strive 
much more earnestly to do it than one who is not a 
Christian, who has at heart neither Christ, God, nor god- 
liness, but only thinks how he may remain in his power, 
pomp and ceremony. You have examples of David, Hez- 
ekiah, and Josiah, as contrasted with Saul, Jeroboam 
and Rehoboam. Therefore get thee behind us Satan, and 
cease to mislead simple men; under thine appearance of 
great patience and spirituality, we know thee by thine old 
conceit. 

THE ELEVENTH PASSAGE 

" Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour and hate thine enemy, but I say unto you, Love your enemy, 
speak well of those who speak ill of you, do well to them that hate 
you, pray for those who injure and persecute you, that you may be 
children of your Father in Heaven. For he letteth his sun shine upon 
the evil and the good, and giveth rain to the just and the unjust. 
For if ye love those that love you, what have you for a reward ? Do 
not the publicans also the same? and if ye act friendly to your 



296 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

brothers who do likewise to you, do not the publicans so also? 
Therefore you shall be perfect, like as your Father in Heaven is 
perfect." — Matt, v., 43-48. 

Here the brothers once more cry out murder on the 
magistrate, and say, "See there, the magistrate that a 
Christian is willing to be does not smite the wicked with 
the sword, but has love for his enemy, does him good 
and prays for him." Answer: Well now, let us take 
these words of Christ for ourselves and weigh them, and 
we shall not err. Christ says, " You have heard that it 
hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate 
thine enemy." Mark there precisely who is an enemy, 
namely, he whom one hates and envies. But now a 
Christian should hate or envy nobody, but should have 
love for all; therefore a Christian magistrate has no 
enemy, for he hates and envies no one. For what he 
does with the sword he does not perform out of hatred 
or envy, but according to the command of God. There- 
fore to punish the wicked is not to hate, envy or act the 
enemy. For in that case even God were moved by 
hatred, envy and enmity, which he is not, since when 
he wills to punish the wicked he does not do it out of 
envy or hate, but justice. 

Therefore a just and Christian magistrate does not 
hate him whom he punishes; he is sorrowful of heart 
that he rules over people deserving of such punishment. 
Yea, what he does he does according to the ordinance 
and earnest command of God, who has appointed him a 
servant and has hung the sword at his side for the ad- 
ministration of justice. Therefore at the last day he 
must give an exact account of how he has used the 
sword. For the sword is nothing else than a good rod 
and scourge of God, which he [the magistrate] is called 



On the Sword 297 

to use against the wicked. Now what God calls good is 
good, and if he calls thee to slay thy son, it would be 
a good work. When therefore God wills to do many 
things through his creatures, as his instruments, which he 
might accomplish alone and without them, he yet wills 
so to use us as that we serve each other, and do not go 
idle, but each one fulfils his own duty to which God has 
called him. One shall preach, another shall protect 
him, a third shall till the field, a fourth shall do his work 
in some other way, so that we shall all eat our bread in 
the sweat of our faces. Verily, verily, he who rules in 
a just and Christian way has to sweat enough — he does 
not go idle. 

Now we see again plainly how the above-mentioned 
word of Christ and the sword so completely agree; where- 
fore one dare not, for the sake of brotherly love, ungird 
the sword. Yea, and if I am a Christian and rightly dis- 
posed, if I fall into a sin I shall wish and pray that the 
magistrate may punish me quickly, that I may no more 
heap sin on sin. Whence it follows that the magistrate 
may and should punish, not alone from justice, but from 
the love that he bears to the evil-doer (not to his evil 
deed) ; for it is good and profitable to the sinner that a 
millstone be at once hanged about his neck, and he be 
drowned in the water (Matt, xviii., 6). 

THE TWELFTH PASSAGE 

"Ye have heard that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not 
kill, but he who kills shall be in danger of the judgment." — Matt. 
v., 21. 

Why is it now, dear brethren, that you cry out to 
Heaven and shout overloud, " It stands written, ' Thou 
shalt not kill, Thou shalt not kill.' " Now we have also 



298 Balthasar Hubmaier 

the command in the Old Testament, plain and clear, 
that we nevertheless shall kill. Do you say, " Yes, but 
God commanded them"? then I reply, God has also 
commanded that the magistrate shall kill and degrade 
the turbulent. He has for that girded them with the 
sword, and not in vain, as Paul writes to the Romans. 
Do you now ask, pious Christian, how " kill " and " do 
not kill " agree with each other? Answer : completely: 

As be chaste and be married, Matt, xix., 3-12. 

As have a wife and have one not, 1 Cor. vii., 25-30. 

As a testimony is true and is not true, John v., 31, 32; 
viii., 14. 

As have all things and have nothing, 2 Cor. vi., 10. 

As to be rich and to be poor, ib. 

As to preach the gospel to every creature, and yet not 
cast pearls before swine, Matt, xxviii., 19; vii., 6. 

As to love father and mother and to hate them, Ex. 
xx., 12; Luke xiv., 26. 

As to see God and not see him, Gen. xxxii., 30; John 
i., 18. 

As all men shall be saved, and those who do not be- 
lieve shall be condemned, John i., 7-12. 

As to swear by the name of God and not to swear, 
Deut. vi., 13; Matt, v., 34. 

As not to sin and yet to have sin, 1 John i., 8; iii., 6. 

As to sell all things that we have and give to the poor, 
and yet to give of our superfluity that we come not to 
poverty, Matt, xix., 21; 2 Cor. viii., 13-15. 

As to be poor, and happy to give to him that takes, 
Matt, v., 42. 

As Christ to be always with us to the end of the world, 
and yet not to have him always among us, Matt, xxviii., 
20; John xvi., 7. 



On the Sword 299 

As God punishes the wickedness of the father on the 
son, to the third and fourth generation, and yet the son 
does not bear the wickedness of the father, Ex. xx., 5; 
Ezek. xviii., 17. 

As we should not do good works before men, and yet 
should do good works that men may see them, Matt, v., 
16; vi., 1. 

As we do not know the mind of God, and yet he has 
revealed unto us the secret of his will, Rom. xi., 33; 1 
Cor. ii., 7-10. 

As ask of God all things and receive them, also ask 
and yet not receive them, Matt, vii., 7; James iv., 2. 

As beat the swords into ploughshares and the spears 
into pruning hooks, and beat the ploughshares into 
swords and the pruning hooks into spears, Isa. ii., 4; 
Joel iii., 10. 

As we shall not judge and yet judge, and set those in- 
ferior to us to judge, Luke vi., 37; 1 Cor. vi., 2-4. 

As Abraham was justified by faith, and yet by works, 
Rom. iv., 3; James ii., 21; Heb. xi., 8. 

As to please our neighbour, and yet not to please men, 
Rom. xv., 2; Gal. i., 10. 

As to hate evil, and yet bless those that persecute us. 
Matt, xviii., 21; Rom. xii., 9. 

As we shall become children, and yet shall not be 
children, Matt, xix., 14; 1 Cor. xiii., 11; Eph. iv., 14. 

As God wills all men to be saved, and yet whom he 
will he pities, and whom he will he hardens, 1 Tim. ii., 
4; Rom. ix., 18. 

As the yoke of Christ is sweet, and yet impossible to 
men, Matt, xi., 20; xix., 26. 

As the angels desire to see the face of God, and yet if his 
glory appears we shall be satisfied, 1 Pet. i., 12 ; Ps. xvi.,11. 



300 Balthasar Hlibmaier 

As the judgment of God is good, and yet God has 
given a judgment that is not good, Rom. vii., 12. 

As that the king should not have many wives, and yet 
Rehoboam had fourteen, Abijah as many, David also 
many, and Solomon 700, besides 300 concubines, Deut. 
xvii., 17; 2 Chron. xi., 21; xiii., 21; 1 Kings xi., 3. 

As God will not keep his anger forever, and yet the 
condemned must go into everlasting fire, Ps. ciii., 9; 
Matt, xxv., 46. 

As that there is no law given for the righteous, and yet 
Christ has given us a new commandment, 1 Tim. i., 9; 
John xiii., 34. 

As God does not tempt, and yet God did tempt Abra- 
ham, James i., 13; Gen. xxii., 1. 

As the Father and Christ are one, and yet the Father 
is more than Christ, John x., 18, 30; xiv., 6-12. 

And many similar passages, which appear to be op- 
posed to each other, as the wings of the Cherubim, and 
yet all alike come to a head in Christ. Therefore one 
should split the claws of Scripture and repeat it well, be- 
fore he eats (that is believes), or he will eat death there- 
from, and through half-truth and half-judgment will 
wander widely, widely from the whole truth, and go 
seriously astray. A comparison: Christ says, " This is 
my body, which is given for you ; this do in remembrance 
of me." That is now a whole truth. Who now judges 
from this a half truth, says that the bread is the body of 
Christ and errs. But he who judges the whole truth, 
says that the bread is the body of Christ, which is given 
for us, but not bodily, in itself, or substantially, but re- 
tained in remembrance according to the command given 
by Christ at the last supper; and that is the whole truth 
and nothing else is. He who understands that can also 



On the Sword 3 QI 

see that " kill " and " kill not " maybe entirely true and 
consistent with each other. 

Now then we will take the word of Christ for our- 
selves, and see whether the magistrate is forbidden to 
kill. Christ says, "Thou shalt not kill," and he goes 
on to the roots of killing and says, " But I say to you, he 
who is angry with his brother is in danger of the judg- 
ment. But he who says to his brother, ' Raca, ' is in 
danger of the council. But he who says, ' Thou fool ' is 
in danger of hell fire." Reading that in addition, dear 
brothers, you shall more clearly see what killing Christ 
has forbidden, namely, the killing that goes with wrath, 
ridicule, and abuse. But the magistrate (I speak of the 
true magistrate) does not kill from wrath, is not moved 
by words of ridicule and abuse, but [acts] according to 
the commandment of God, who has earnestly com- 
manded him to slay the wicked and to keep the pious in 
peace. 

Wherefore now the magistrate may kill the evil-doer, 
and in doing this he is guiltless according to the ordi- 
nance of God, and himself cannot be judged. And I, 
or any other required and summoned thereto, am guilt- 
less in helping him; and whoso withstands him with- 
stands the ordinance of Christ and himself will incur the 
eternal judgment. Do not believe me here, dear brothers, 
but believe Paul, that you will find yourselves safe. 
Therefore those whom we call hangmen were in the Old 
Testament pious, honourable, and brave men, and were 
called prefects, that is, executors of the ordinance and 
law of God. Since it is honourable to the judge to con- 
demn with the mouth the guilty, how can it be wrong to 
kill the same with the sword and fulfil the word of the 
judge, since the executor of the law strikes or kills with 



302 Balthasar Hubmaier 

the sword none whom the judge had not commanded 
him? We read that Solomon commanded the honourable 
Benaiah to kill Shimei, Adonijah, and Joab (i K. ii.). 
Saul commanded Doeg to kill the priests (i Sam. xxii., 
1 8), and David ordered his servant to slay the slayer of 
Saul (2 Sam. i., 15). Since neither the judge nor the 
executioner kill the evil-doer, but the law of God, there- 
fore are the judge, magistrate and executioner called 
in the Scripture servants of God and not murderers. 
God judges, condemns and kills through them, and not 
they themselves. Whence it follows, they who would 
not kill the evil-doer but let him live, even murder and 
sin against the command, " Thou shalt not kill." For 
he who does not protect the pious kills him and is guilty 
of his death, as well as he who does not feed the hungry. 

THE THIRTEENTH PASSAGE 

"The kings of this world," says Christ, "lord it, and those in 
authority are called ' Gracious lords.' ' But you not so." — Luke 
xxii., 25, 26. 

What great maxim you make there, and especially of 
the words, " but you not so" I cannot satisfactorily tell. 
But I take pity on you as before. For you have not well 
seen either the preceding or the following words, for if 
you did you would understand them right and we should 
soon come to agreement. Well, then, we will begin this 
passage three lines farther back, and the meaning will 
then appear plain. Thus reads the text: "There arose 
a contention among the disciples, which of them should 
be ruler," who should have the authority in external and 
carnal things, since the secular authority is over flesh and 
1 Our English version has it " benefactors." 



On the Sword 303 

body and over temporal things, but not over the soul. 
To him according to the divine order the sword is en- 
trusted, not that he may fight, war, strive and tyrannise 
with it, but to defend the wise, protect the widow, main- 
tain the pious, and to tolerate all who are distressed or 
persecuted by force. This is the duty of the magistrate, 
as God himself many times in the Scriptures declares it, 
which may not take place without blood and killing, 
wherefore God has hung the sword at his side, and not a 
fox's tail. 

THE LAST PASSAGE A SANCTION OF MAGISTRACY 
AMONG CHRISTIANS 

Let every man be subject to the magistrate and power, 
for there is no power apart from God. But the power 
everywhere is ordained by God; so that he who sets 
himself against the power strives against the ordinance 
of God. But he who strives will receive condemnation 
of himself. For the rulers do not make the good work 
fear but the evil. Wilt thou not fear? then do good, so 
shalt thou have praise from the same. But if thou doest 
evil, then fear, for authority bears not the sword in vain. 
He is God's servant, a judge for punishment over him 
that does evil. So you are obliged to submit, not alone 
because of the punishment, but because of conscience; 
wherefore you must also give tribute, for they are God's 
servants who provide such protection. (Rom. xiii., 1-6.) 
This passage alone, dear brothers, is enough to sanction 
the magistracy against all the gates of hell. When Paul 
says plainly, " Let every one be submissive to the magis- 
trate," whether he is a believer or unbeliever, you ought 
always to be submissive and Obedient. He gives as a 



304 Balthasar Hubmaier 

reason, " For there is no power but of God." Where- 
fore this obedience is the duty of all who are not against 
God, since God has not ordained the magistrate against 
himself. Now the magistrate will punish the wicked, as 
he is bound to do by his own soul's salvation; and if he 
is not able to do this alone, when he summons his sub- 
jects by bell or gun, by letter or any other way, they are 
bound by their soul's salvation also to stand by their 
prince and help him, so that according to the will of God 
the wicked may be slain and uprooted. 

Nevertheless, the subjects should carefully test the 
spirit of their ruler, whether he is not incited by haughti- 
ness, pride, intoxication, envy, hatred, or his own profit, 
rather than by love of the common weal and the peace 
of society. When that is the case, he does not bear the 
sword according to the ordinance of God. But if you 
know that the ruler is punishing the evil only, so that 
the pious may remain in peace and uninjured, then help, 
counsel, stand by him, as often and as stoutly as you are 
able; thus you fulfil the ordinance of God and do his 
work, and not a work of men. 

But if a ruler should be childish or foolish, yea, even 
entirely unfit to rule, one may with reason then escape 
from him and choose another, since on account of a 
wicked ruler God has often punished a whole land. But 
if it may not well be done, reasonably and peaceably and 
without great shame and rebellion, he should be suffered 
as one whom God has given us in his anger, and wills 
(since we are worthy of no better) thus to chastise us for 
our sins. 

He then who will not aid the magistrate to seek out the 
widows and orphans and other oppressed, and to punish 
the outragers and ravishers of the land, contends against 



On the Sword 305 

the ordinance of God and will come to the judgment, 
since he acts contrary to the command and ordinance of 
God, who wills that the pious should be protected and 
the wicked punished. But if you are obedient, you 
should know that you have rendered such obedience, 
not to the magistrate or to man, but to God himself, and 
have become a peculiar servant of God, just as the magis- 
trate himself is nothing but a servant of God. For that 
the magistrate has power and authority to put to death 
the wicked, Paul plainly testifies when he says, " The 
power does not bear the sword in vain." If the magis- 
trate has no authority to kill, why has he the sword at 
his side? He then bears it in vain, which Paul will not 
suffer. He adds also explicitly, " The power is a servant 
of God." Where are they then that say, '* A Christian 
may not bear the sword " ? If a Christian may not be a 
servant of God, if he may not obey the command of God 
without sin, then were God not good. He has made an 
ordinance which a Christian may not fulfil without sin — 
that is blasphemy! 

Accordingly, I counsel you with true love, brothers, 
turn back, take heed to yourselves. You have stumbled 
badly, and under the cloak of spirituality and humility 
have devised much mischief against God and brotherly 
love. All affairs remain more peaceful where one sees 
a Christian ruler and his subjects agree in a manly, 
brotherly, and Christian fashion, and many a tyrant 
would cease his striving and urging against God and all 
reason, and sheathe his sword according to the command 
of God. Yet if God wills that we should suffer, his will 
cannot be hindered by our protection. 

To sum up : no one can deny that to protect the pious 
and punish the wicked is the strict command of God, 



306 Balthasar Hubmaier 

which stands to the judgment day. Examine the Scrip- 
tures, Christian reader, Is. i., Jer. xxi, xxii., Ps. lxi., 
Mi. vi., Na. iii., Prov. iii., Zach. vii., Habakkuk 
throughout. This command binds the ruler up to the 
present day, as well as those five centuries ago. For 
Christ says to you, " Thou shalt obey the secular king 
and call the ruler gracious Lord. Not only so, but the 
greatest among you shall be as the least, and the fore- 
most as the servant." If one is conscious that Christ 
here commands those who would preach his gospel to 
serve, they ought not to undertake any foreign office, 
nor entangle themselves with secular business, as hitherto 
our Pope and bishops have become the first and last in 
all secular business — yea, even in the business of war. 
So that when two cocks in Germany or Italy have pecked 
at one another in a scrimmage, the Pope and his cardinals 
have taken sides with one of them. 1 This Christ cannot 
suffer, and so he says that the preachers of his gospel 
must be free of secular affairs, as also Paul writes to 
Timothy. (2 Tim. ii.) 

In the second place: the text clearly points out that 
each of the disciples desired the pre-eminence, and they 
were quarrelling which among them should be greatest. 
Jesus could not see such a quarrel. It belongs to no 
Christian, out of lust for authority, to contend to be a 
ruler, but much rather to flee it. For if there is a fright- 
ful post to be found, outside of the sphere of the preacher, 
it is the post of magistrate and secular ruler. Christ 
speaks to this effect: " The kings of this world lord it 
and are called Gracious Lord." [Luke xxii., 25.] But 

1 The Pope has forbidden conflict between two men, and yet he 
has put eighty thousand men in the field and made them fight, and 
added his benediction and indulgence. — Marginal note by Hubmaier. 



On the Sword 307 

a Christian, if he is in authority, does not lord it. He 
does not desire to be called Gracious Lord, or Sir; but 
he considers that he is a servant of God, and is diligent 
in performing the ordinance of God, according to which 
he protects the pious and punishes the wicked. He 
exalts himself above none, but takes well to heart the 
word of Christ that the foremost shall be as a servant. 
Do you see, brothers, that here Christ himself points out 
how the oldest shall recognise and hold himself to be the 
youngest and the foremost to be a servant? — therefore 
there must always be, among Christians old and young, 
masters and servants, or he has given us this rule to no 
purpose. So, dear brothers, make no patchwork of the 
Scripture, but putting the foregoing and following words 
together in one entire judgment, you will then come to 
a complete understanding of the Scriptures, and you will 
see how the text does not forbid the magistracy to the 
Christian, but teaches one not to quarrel, war and fight 
for it, nor conquer land and people with the sword and 
force. That is against God. Also we should not greatly 
desire to be saluted as Lords, like secular kings, princes 
and lords. For the magistracy is not lordship and 
knighthood, but service according to the ordinance of 
God. 

THE FOURTEENTH PASSAGE 

" Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath [of 
God] ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the 
Lord. So, if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him 
drink." — Rom. xii., 19. 

Whoever has attended to the tenth and eleventh pass- 
ages above cited will easily answer. For as the Christian 
ruler has no enemy, he hates no one; therefore he desires 



308 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

vengeance on none. But he must do whatever he does 
according to the command of God, who wills through 
him, as his work testifies, to punish the wicked and 
dangerous people. He does this, not in wrath, but with 
sorrowful heart. But vengeance follows wrath ; so, if one 
wishes to avenge himself because of his own wrath, that 
is here forbidden. Since vengeance is God's, he will re- 
pay the evil. (Deut. xxxii., Heb. x., Prov. xxv.) Paul 
gives the reason for this, from the twelfth chapter to the 
thirteenth: we should not avenge ourselves, because God 
has ordained the magistracy for vengeance, as his ser- 
vants, whose duty is to protect, to punish, to avenge. 

THE FIFTEENTH PASSAGE 

"Christ is our head and we are his members." — Eph. i., 4, 5 ; 
Col. i., 2. 

Here I must indulge myself, for they cry out at me: 
" Do you not see that our head, Christ, has not striven 
or fought ? Therefore we must not strive, but patiently 
go to death." First, dear brothers, I fear you do not 
know what divine or Christlike means, for there is a great 
difference between them. As to that, if we look at our- 
selves as we are by nature, Christ is not our head and 
we are not his members. While he is righteous and 
truthful, we are wicked and full of lies. Christ is a 
child of grace, we are children of wrath. Christ never 
did any sin, we are conceived and born in sins. Do you 
see how as members we agree with the head ? 

Second, that Paul nevertheless calls us members of 
Christ pertains to faith. That is said so many times. 
If we know ourselves, that we ought to be members of 
Christ, and yet are not, we confess ourselves guilty and 



On the Sword 309 

pray God for pardon through Christ Jesus. Through 
having done this, we firmly believe that God has for- 
given us our sins. Now by faith we have become mem- 
bers of Christ, not in nature, that is, in will and works. 
So far as flesh is concerned, that cannot be obedient to 
the command of God, but by faith power is given us to 
become children of God, after the spirit and soul, and 
to will and work good — though still all our works accord- 
ing to the flesh are blameworthy, evil, and worthless, and 
not at all righteous in the sight of God. 

Third, since we now know that only by faith are we 
children of God and members of Christ, we have not all 
one duty. So that one should take the lead in teaching, 
another protects, a third tills the earth, a fourth makes 
shoes and clothes. Yet these works all proceed from 
faith, and are done for the benefit of our neighbour. 
Paul also writes further: "Wherefore you must needs 
be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also 
for conscience' sake." [Rom. xiii., 5.] What does that 
mean? It is this: the secular power is ordained of God 
for the peace of society — even if there were no Scripture 
about it to make us obedient to the government, our own 
conscience and knowledge tell us that. We should help, 
protect, defend the government, and pay service and 
taxes, so that we may remain in worldly peace with one 
another; for to have peace in this world is not contrary 
to a Christian life. Otherwise Paul would never have 
taught us through Timothy to pray for kings, princes, 
and governors; but to keep peace with all men, as much 
as in us lies, that is right and Christian. (1 Tim. ii., 
Rom. ii.) But if God pleases to send us the exact con- 
trary, we must receive it with patience. Do you see 
now, dear brothers, that your own conscience compels 



3io Balthasar Hiibmaier 

you to recognise that it is wise and helpful to punish the 
wicked and protect the good ? That is called, in good 
German, "a general land-peace." So, says Paul, to 
further and preserve this peace we must pay taxes, cus- 
toms and tribute. 

Here mark you, dear brothers, if government is so 
unchristian that a Christian may not bear the sword, 
wherefore do we help and preserve it with our taxes ? 
If we are not under obligation to prevent wrong to our 
neighbour as well as to ourselves, why do we choose a 
magistrate ? Or are those in the magistracy not our 
neighbours ? If we desire to live in peace under a 
heathen government, why not much more under a Christ- 
ian ? Since we are under a Christian government, the 
ordinance of God should appeal much more to our hearts 
than under a heathen. To what conclusion does that 
lead, dear brothers ? 

But Paul takes us farther and says: " The power is a 
servant of God," who shall use his protecting power for 
the good of our neighbour and the preservation of a 
general land-peace. Where is it written then that a 
Christian may not be such a servant of God as fulfils 
the command of God to the good of all men ? Or that 
he may not undertake such a divine work (as Paul him- 
self calls it) according to the ordinance of God ? God 
surely wills that we should share his grace with all, until 
we come to the real prohibition of his Holy Word; and 
that we should remain and persist in the same, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. The peace of God be with you 
all. Amen. 

TRUTH IS IMMORTAL 



A FORGOTTEN HYMN OF HUBMAIER'S 

Much of the earliest Anabaptist literature is in the form 
of hymns, often crude in expression and halting in metre, 
but full of spiritual fervour. It would be surprising if 
so fertile a writer as Hubmaier had contributed nothing 
to this sort of literature; and still stranger, if he did 
write hymns, that none of them should be preserved. 
As a matter of fact, several of the old Anabaptist docu- 
ments contain a hymn that is attributed to Hubmaier. 
It is not unknown, being printed in full, but anony- 
mously, in Wackernagel's great collection, 1 vol. iii., p. 
126 sq. The title there given is, " Ein preiss lied 
gottlichs worts " (A song in praise of God's word). As 
to the authorship, the editor contents himself with re- 
marking that the hymn has been attributed without 
■satisfactory reason to Erasmus Alber. Beck, Hoschek, 
and Loserth agree that the hymn is undoubtedly Hub- 
maier' s. The text is herewith reprinted from Wacker- 
nagel, with a metrical translation, in which the attempt 
has been made to follow the original as closely as the 
exigencies of English versification woirtd admit — at any 
rate, to represent fairly the spirit of trie original. 

1 Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, three vols., Leipzig, 1870. 



3" 



3i2 Balthasar Hubmaier 

Frewt euch, frewt euch in diser zeyt, 
jr werden Christen alle ! 
Wann yetz in alien landen weyt 
Gots wort her dringt mit schalle. 

Est ist kein man, ders weren kan, 
das habt ir wol vernummen, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
den bosen als den frummen. 

Adam, Adam, du alter greysz, 
wie hat es dir ergangen ? 
Nach deynem fall im Paradeysz 
hast du von Got empfangen 

Sein Gotlich wort genummen an, 
vnd bist dadurch erhalten, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
den jungen als den alten. 

Noe, Noe, du Gottes man! 

Got hat dich auszerkoren, 

Das du seyn wort hast gnummen an, 

hat er zu dir geschworen, 

Mit wasser nit ertrincken Ian, 
wolt von seim zorn abweichen, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
den armen als den reichen. 

Abraham, Abraham geb gut bescheyd: 
er glaubet Got, seim Herren, 
Das ward jm zelt zur grechtigkeyt, 
seyn samen wolt er meren. 

Also hat Gott den alien than, 
die seinem wort vertrawen, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
den die darauff thund bawen. 



A Forgotten Hymn 313 

Rejoice, rejoice, ye Christians all, 

And break forth into singing! 
Since far and wide on every side 

The word of God is ringing. 
And well we know, no human foe 

Our souls from Christ can sever; 
For to the base, and men of grace, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

O Adam, Adam, first of men, 

What future did fate send you? 
After your fall in Paradise 

How did your God befriend you ? 
His holy word from him you heard, 

That word which faileth never, 
To tend'rest age, to hoary sage, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

O Noah, Noah, man of God, 

Thy God hath thee selected 
And sworn to thee an oath, since thou 

His word hast not rejected: 
' ' With flood again to drown all men 

My wrath shall hasten never ' ' ; 
To swollen pelf, to want itself, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

And Abraham believed his God, 

And so, for his devotion, 
His faith became his righteousness, 

His seed like sands of ocean. 
Thus has God done for every one, 

Who trust him perish never; 
To every one who builds thereon 

God's word stands sure for ever. 



3 14 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

Loth, Loth, ein frumm Gotforchtig man, 
Got thet jm zwen Engel senden, 
Hiesz jn ausz Sodom zihen than 
und solt sich nicht vmbwenden : 

Alsbald hiib Gott zu regnen an 
mit schwefel und mit feiire, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
kumbt vns alien zu steiire* 

David, David, ein kiing und herr, 
ein man nach Gottes willen, 
Hat angenummen Gottes leer, 
darumb seyn wort erfullet: 

Ausz seinem stamm Got globet an, 
wolt er geboren werden, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
jm himel vnd auff erden. 

Jesus Christus, Marie son, 
vom heyligen geyst empfangen, 
Was all Propheten gsaget hon 
ist als an jm ergangen: 

Das hat Got als durch jn gethan, 
vnd spricht " den solt jr horen! " 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
den sol wir loben vnd ehren. 

Nun hort, nun hort vnd mercket mit fleysz 
was vns fiirter beschreiben 
Im Testament auff newe weisz, 
darinn sie thiin verleiben, 

Was vormals ye gesaget ward 
von Christo vnserm herren: 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
vnd wirt sich allzeyt meren. 



A Forgotten Hymn 315 

And Lot, devout, God-fearing man, 

Two angels came to find him, 
And lead him out from Sodom safe, 

Nor should he look behind him. 
God's fiery flood therein withstood 

No living thing whatever; 
All men, like Lot, must pay their scot, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

O David, David, king and lord, 

A man of God's own choosing, 
God's truth he hid within his heart 

Beyond all fear of losing. 
From David's seed Christ should proceed, 

He swore who changeth never; 
In heaven and on earth the same 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

Jesus the Christ, of Mary born 

And of the Holy Spirit, 
What all the prophets promised 

We shall in him inherit. 
" Hear him," the call of God to all, 

To save us his endeavour; 
To him all praise and honour raise — 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

Now hear, now hear, and mark with care 

What else for us is written, 
And learn from his new Covenant 

What more to do we 're bidden. 
And what of old has been foretold 

Of Christ our Lord and Saviour; 
To latest hour, in vaster power, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 



316 Balthasar Hiibmaier 

Mattheus Leui Euangelist, 
ein man vom Zoll beriiffen, 
Der erste Cantzler worden ist, 
lernet allein zu suchen 

Disen Heilandt, der selber spricht 
11 kumpt, jr betrtibten alle! " 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
mit pracht vnd grossem schalle. 

Marcus, Marcus der ander ist, 
der auch reichlich auszpreytet 
Mirackel grosz von disem Christ, 
damit er hat geleytet 

Zum glauben bracht, das der allein 
gerecht vnd frumm thiit machen, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
sie waynen oder lachen. 

Lucas auch in die ordnung tritt, 
grosz wunderthatt vns zeyget, 
Zu schreiben ausz ist er der drit, 
wie hoch vns Gott sey geneyget, 

Das er vns schickt von hymel herab 
seyn Son freundtlich lest locken, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
wer das nicht glaubt, miisz pocken. 

Johannes, Johannes, der Jiingling schon, 
ist auch der vierdte worden, 
Das Wort er flirt in gleichem thon, 
lert vns den Christen orden 

Mit glaub vnd lieb beweysen recht 
vnd sunst anders nicht suchen, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
es hilfft kein scharrn noch puchen. 



A Forgotten Hymn 317 

Matthew, the first evangelist, 

From Roman service taken, 
Has now become chief counsellor 

And has his sins forsaken; 
Hears Jesus call, who says to all, 

" Follow with best endeavour." 
In ample fame, always the same, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

And Mark, yes, Mark, the second is, 

And richly he has taught us 
The knowledge of that mighty power 

Wherewith our Lord has brought us 
To faith in God, to which is owed 

All goodness whatsoever; 
For all men's tears, for all men's jeers, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

Luke also follows in the train 

And tells the gospel story: 
The wondrous works of Christ, and how 

From heaven the God of glory 
To men undone has sent his Son 

That men might perish never; 
Believe we must, or bite the dust, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

And John, the fourth evangelist, 

A youth of wondrous beauty, 
Reveals to us the Word divine 

And teaches us our duty. 
With faith and love your calling prove 

And seek no other lever; 
It gives no aid to hoe or spade, 

But God's word stands for ever. 



3*8 Balthasar Hubmaier 

Saulus, Paulus, erweltes fasz, 
ist erst der rechte keren, 
Der vns erregt den neid vnd hasz, 
darnon so zornig werden 

Die welt vnd jr grosz hoffgesind, 
die also toben vnd wiiten: 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
vor den wirdt ers behiiten. 

O Paul, O Paul, was richstu an 
mit deinem theiiren schreiben? 
Menschlich vernunfft hoch sichtest an, 
wilt ire werck vertreiben, 

Allein den glauben richten auff, 
der sols alles auszrichten, 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
wie wol sie es vernichten. 

Petrus, Judas vnd Jacobus 
folgen auch diser lere, 
Das sie vns lernen rew vnd biisz 
durch Christum vnsern Herren, 

Auff den sie all vns weysen thon: 
on jn wirt nit geholffen! 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
vor Lowen, Beren vnd Wolffen. 

Ach mensch, ach mensch, nu Schick dich drein 
lasz deinen dunckel faren 
Und glaub der schrifft vnd worten sein, 
damit du mogst bewaren 

Dein gwissen vnd auch all dein thon 
trewlich darauff verlassen-. 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
zeygt vns den weg vnd strassen. 



A Forgotten Hymn 319 

And Saul, God's chosen vessel he, 

His early sin repented: 
He stormed and strove against the saints 

As if he were demented. 
In vain the age 'gainst us shall rage, 

Our souls from Christ to sever; 
In time of ill our stronghold still, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

O Paul, O Paul, what fruit of all 

Thy writings in their season ! 
The truth thou hast declared shall stand 

Against all human reason. 
Sin is o'erthrown by faith alone, 

And, though the great and clever 
Were all employed to make it void, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

And Peter, Jude, and James, all three 

Do follow in this teaching; 
Repentance and confession they 

Through Christ our Lord are preachings 
In him men must put all their trust, 

Or they shall see God never; 
The wolf may tear, the lion, bear, — 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

Ah, man, blind man, now hear the word, 

Make sure your state and calling; 
Believe the Scripture is the power 

By which we 're kept from falling. 
Your valued lore at once give o'er, 

Renounce your vain endeavour; 
This shows the way, no longer stray, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 



320 Balthasar Hubmaier 

O Jhesu Christ, du Gottes son, 
las vns nit von dir weychen! 
Das vns nit werd ein boser Ion, 
so menschen leer her streychen 

Mit schoner gestalt vnd wiiterichs gwalt 
zu tilgen deynen namen; 
Dann Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan 
von nun vnd ewig, Amen. 

Lobt Gott, lobt Gott in eynigkeyt, 
jr Christen all gemeyne! 
Das er seyn wort hatt auszgepreyt, 
das ist seyn werck alleyne. 

Keins menschen wan nicht helffen kan, 
wie hoch er sey mit namen, 
Dan Gottes wort bleybt ewig stan, 
Nun singen wir frohlich, Amen I 



A Forgotten Hymn 321 

O Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, 

Let us not lack thy favour, 
For what shall be our just reward 

If the salt shall lose its savour? 
With angry flame to efface thy name 

In vain shall men endeavour; 
Not for a day, the same for aye, 

God's word stands sure for ever. 

Praise God, praise God in unity, 

Ye Christian people sweetly, 
That he his word has spread abroad — 

His word, his work completely. 
No human hand can him withstand, 

No name how high soever; 
And sing we then our glad Amen! 

God's word stands sure for ever. 







N 



ws 



'm l{ 



INDEX 



Anabaptists, why unpopu- 
lar, i ; chiliastic ideas 
among, 2, 161, 165 sq.; 
revolutionary views of 
some, 3, 162, 164; Lu- 
ther's treatment of, 6; 
slanders against, 7, 21; 
Cornelius on, 7 ; Ijeckls 
book about, 8; Keller's re- 
searches on, 9; connection 
with older sects, 9-13; re- 
lation to Reformation, 13 ; 
character of, 14; their 
ideal of the church, 15 ; re- 
pudiate name "Anabap- 
tist," 16, 204; mysticism 
among, 14, 17; real offence 
of, 19; their vindication, 
20; fate of their leaders, 
21; origin in Zurich, 92, 
102 ; Hubmaier joins them, 
1 1 1 ; charged with schism 
by Zwingli, 118; why 
deserving of punishment, 
119; Denck unites with 
them, 142; act of baptism 
among, 142-145; lords of 
Lichtenstein join them, 
151; great progress of, at 
Nikolsburg, 152 sq.; Sebas- 
tian Franck on, 159; the 
socialistic wing, 162; doc- 
trine of non-resistance 
among, 159, 160; schism in 
Nikolsburg among, 167 
sq. ; charged with sedition, 



171; how far socialists, 172, 
176, 215, 250 sq.; Unitar- 
ians among, 184; ritual of 
210; use of the ban, 212; 
singing of hymns, 214; on 
salvation of infants, 216; 
banished from Moravia, 
257; their protest, 259- 
264; numbers in Nikols- 
burg, 267; their martyrs, 
269; emigrate to Russia 
and United States, 270 

Aberli, Henry, Anabaptist 
preacher, 124 

Affusion, practised by Hub- 
maier, 112, 142; by Grebel, 
143; by the Mennonites, 

145 

Albertus Magnus, 47 

Albigenses, 10 

Anselm, theory of satisfac- 
tion, 198 

Anthropology, Hubmaier's 
doctrine of, 190—198 

Antinomianism, 189 

Apostles' Creed, Hubmaier's 
paraphrase of, 178 

Argula von Stauff, 78, 183 

Arkleb, lord of Boskowitz, 
152, 275 

Articles, Twelve, of the peas- 
ants, 96, 241 

Atonement, Hubmaier's doc- 
trine of, 198 

Augsburg, Latin school at, 
26; the Fuggerei, 39; 
Reichstag of 15 18, 41; 
Hubmaier visits, 142 ; Ana- 



323 



3H 



Index 



Augsburg — Continued. 

baptists immerse there, 
144; Hans Hut at, 160; 
Jacob Widemann, 163; 
death of Hut at, 169 

Augustinianism, Luther's, 
193, 196 

Auspitz, Anabaptist colony, 
250 

Austerlitz, Anabaptist col- 
ony, 249, 251 

Austria, difficulty withWalds- 
hut,74~79; captures W aids- 
hut, 122-123; determined 
to kill Hubmaier, 238 



B 



Ban, among Anabaptists, 
212; reckless use of, 255 

Baptism, act of, among Ana- 
baptists, 142-145; prac- 
tice of Hubmaier, 112, 142 

Baptism of infants, deemed 
unscriptural, 10, 16, 102; 
Swiss reformers uncertain 
about, 99, 104; questioned 
by Miinzer, 107; attacked 
by Hubmaier, 99, 114— 
122; defended by Zwingli, 
113, 118, 135 

Baptism of believers, 10, 102; 
Hubmaier 's doctrine of, 
202 sq.; remission of sins 
in, 205. See Hubmaier, 
writings of 

Basel, Hubmaier's visit to, 
54; approves policy of 
Schaffhausen, 84 

Beck, Dr. Josef, and his book, 
8 

Blaurock, George, Swiss Ana- 
baptist, 143 

Bogomils, 10 

Brunnstein, John of, 151 

Bullinger, Henry, Swiss re- 
former and historian, on 



the Anabaptists, 105, 107; 

opinion of Hubmaier, 245 
Burgher class, rise of, 5 
Burian, lord of Konitz, 152 



Calvin, doctrines of grace, 
186 

Campbell, Alexander, doc- 
trine of remission of sins, 
205 

Capito, Swiss reformer, let- 
ters to Zwingli, 22; Zwing- 
li's letters to, 125; burns 
Hatzer's book, 184 

Chiliasm among Anabap- 
tists, 2 ; at Nikolsburg, 160, 
161, 165; Hubmaier op- 
poses, 164; William Mil- 
ler's, 165 

Christianity, essential nature 
of, 14 

Church (a single congrega- 
tion), nature of, 10; Petro- 
brusian idea of, 11; Wal- 
densian, ib.; Anabaptist, 
1 5 ; ideas of Zurich radicals, 
101, 103; Hubmaier's doc- 
trine of, 206-208 

Church, separation from 
State, 15, 21; character of 
a State, 20 

Columban, 47 

Community of goods, among 
Anabaptists, 3 ; Hubmai- 
er's idea of, 164; See 
Socialism 

Constance, Hubmaier ac- 
cused to bishop of, 80; his 
visit to the city, 142 

Controversy, Hubmaier's 
love of, 32; between Hub- 
maier and Zwingli, 119 sq.; 
between Hubmaier and 
CEcolampadius, 120-122 

Cornelius, of Bonn, and his 
book, 7 



Index 



325 



Cranmer, Archbishop, com- 
pared to Hubmaier, 237 
Czechs in Moravia, 149 



D 



Denck, John, Anabaptist 
preacher, won to Anabap- 
tism by Hubmaier, 142; 
baptizes Hut, 159, 160; 
anti-Trinitarian theories, 
184 

Dietrichstein, Adam von, 
lord of Nikolsburg, 266; 
persecutes Anabaptists, 
267 

Dietrichstein, Cardinal, ob- 
tains decree of 1623, 268 

Dubcansky, Jan, lord of 
Zdnym, 152 



E 



Ecclesiology, Hubmaier's 
doctrine of, 201-213 

Eck (John Mayer), Dr., Hub- 
maier 's junior, 27; oration 
on Hubmaier, 28; Hub- 
maier's eulogy of, 29; fame 
as a teacher, 3 1 ; quarrel 
with University of Frei- 
burg, ^y, goes to Ingol- 
stadt ? ib.; tomb of, 35; 
remains Hubmaier's friend 
50; challenged by Hub- 
maier to disputation, 89- 

91 
Effectual calling, 199 
Election, Hubmaier on, 186 

sq. 
Englehard, Swiss reformer, 

125 

Erasmus, eminent reformer, 
22; visit of Hubmaier to, 
54; compared to Hub- 
maier, 155, 156 

Eschatology, Hubmaier's 
treatment of, 216 



Exegesis, Hubmaier's 
method of, 175, 182 sq.; 
puerile, 191 



Faber (Heigelin) John, Ro- 
man Catholic theologian, 
testifies Hubmaier was no 
iconoclast, 73; celebrates 
mass in Waldshut, 123; 
confirms torture of Hub- 
maier at Zurich, 137; in- 
terview with Hubmaier at 
Greisenst ein , 226-230; wit - 
ness to Hubmaier's emi- 
nence, 246 

Feet -washing practised at 
Waldshut, 112 

Ferdinand, Archduke of Aus- 
tria (Emperor, 1556-1564), 
summons Waldshut, 74; 
demands expulsion of Hub- 
maier, 75; becomes his im- 
placable enemy, 76; second 
charge against Waldshut, 
79; demands Hubmaier 
from Schaffhausen, 82 ; his 
treachery, 95; answer of 
Waldshut to, 97; final 
terms to Waldshut, 122; 
demands Hubmaier from 
Zurich, 128; chosen King 
of Bohemia, 149; elected 
Margrave of Moravia, 219; 
edict of 1527, 220; deter- 
mined on Hubmaier's 
death, 238; persecutes Mo- 
ravian Anabaptists, 247; 
edict of 1535, 257; death 
of, 264 

Feudalism, decay of, 3; sig- 
nificance of, 4 

Franck, Sebastian (evangeli- 
cal reformer, Anabaptist , 
author, printer), on Ana- 
baptists, 159 



326 



Index 



Frankenhausen, battle of, 
160, 165 

Frederick of Silesia, favour- 
able to Anabaptists, 152 

Freiburg, University of, 27 
sq., 67 

Freiburg in Switzerland, 54 

Friends, 17 

Froschauer. See Sorg 

Fuggers, the, of Augsburg, 39 

Fiisslin, Swiss reformer and 
historian, and the Anabap- 
tists, 2 2 ; account of Hub- 
maier-Zwingli debate, 127 



Glaidt, Oswald, reformer at 
Nikolsburg, 150 

Goschel, Martin, becomes an 
Anabaptist, 150 

Grebel, Conrad, radical lead- 
er at Zurich, 65 ; rebukes 
Miinzer, 107; visits Wald- 
shut, 113; sprinkles Blau- 
rock, 143; immerses Uli- 
man, ib.; baptizes at St. 
Gall, 133 

Greisenstein, castle of, 223 

Gynorseus, Peter, Swiss re- 
former, Zwingli's letter to, 
125 sq. 



H 



Hatzer, Ludwig, Anabaptist 
preacher, slanderous 
charges against, 21; al- 
leged anti- Trinitarian the- 
ories, 184 

Hofmeister, Sebastian, Swiss 
reformer, present at Hub- 
maier-Zwingli debate, 125; 
on baptism of infants, 127 ; 
debates with Hubmaier, 

138 
"Householder" among Mo- 
ravian Anabaptists, 251 



Hubmaier, Balthasar,Life of: 
birth, 24; parentage, 25; 
early training, 2 6 ; matricu- 
lates at Freiburg, 2 7 ; first 
residence at Schaffhausen, 
29, 30; takes Master's de- 
gree, 27, 32; praised by 
Eck, 28; eulogizes Eck, ib.; 
love of controversy, 3 2 ; 
follows Eck to Ingolstadt, 
2,^; Doctor in _ Theology, 
34; university preacher, 
35; vice-rector, 36; chief 
preacher at Regensburg, 3 7 ; 
leads anti-Jewish move- 
ment, 38 sq.; defends cler- 
gy at Augsburg, 41; dis- 
creditable conduct, 43 ; 
chalpain of the "beauteous 
Mary," 44; part in the pil- 
grimages, 45 ; troubles with 
the clergy, 47; leaves Re- 
gensburg, 49 ; repute there, 
50; pastor at Waldshut, 
5 1 ; studies the Scriptures, 
53; visits Switzerland, 54; 
reads Luther's tracts, 55; 
recalled to Regensburg, 
ib.; returns to Waldshut, 
5 6 ; friend of Swiss reform- 
ers, 57; takes part in 
second Zurich Disputa- 
tion, 57-65; speech on 
supremacy of Scriptures, 
58 sq.; against images, 60 
sq.; against the mass, 63 
sq.; spelling of his name, 
66 sq.; publishes eighteen 
theses, 60—7 1 ; institutes 
reforms in Waldshut, 72; 
marries Elizabeth Hug- 
line, 73 ; opposition of 
clergy, 74; his expulsion 
demanded, 75; invited to 
Regensburg and response, 
77, 78; accused of Luther- 
anism, 79; refuses to ap- 
pear at Constance, 80; 



Index 



327 



Hiibmaier — Continued. 

leaves Waldshut, 81; sec- 
ond residence at Schaff- 
hausen, 82-92; appeals to 
council, 83; writes Here- 
tics and Those Who Burn 
Them 84-88; challenges 
Eck to disputation, 89-91; 
returns to Waldshut, 93 ; 
relations to peasants' war, 
96; not author of Twelve 
Articles, ib.; zeal for pure 
gospel, 97, 98; relations to 
Swiss reformers, 99; not 
taught by Miinzer, 105; 
begins to oppose infant 
baptism, 108; letter to 
OEcolampadius, ib.; pub- 
lishes Open Appeal, 109; 
becomes champion of radi- 
cals, no; converted to 
Anabaptism, in; bap- 
tizes large numbers in 
Waldshut, 112; writes his 
Christian Baptism of Be- 
lievers, 114-117; Zwingli's 
reply, 118; Dialogues on 
infant baptism, 1 1 9-1 2 2 ; 
goes to Zurich, 124; his 
arrest, 125; debate with 
Zwingli, 125-128; his pub- 
lic "recantation," 129; 
cruel imprisonment and 
torture, 130, 137, 147; 
writes his Twelve Articles, 
130-136; his written re- 
cantation, 138-140; goes 
to Nikolsburg, 142; kindly 
received, 150; great pro- 
gress of Anabaptists, 152; 
literary activity, 154; rank 
as man of letters, 155-157; 
his ethical tone, 157, 173; 
controversies at Nikols- 
burg, 158; opposes Hut 
and Widemann, 163, 232; 
true communism, 164; 
publishes tract On the 



Sword, 173, 177; arrested 
and sent to Vienna, 177., 
221; unfair attitude to- 
wards Zwingli, 210; pre- 
liminary examination, 222 ; 
imprisonment at Greisen- 
stein, 223; accusations 
against him, 224, 225; in- 
terview with Faber, 226 
sq.; how far he yielded, 
228—230, 236; his Rechen- 
schaft, 230-235; conduct 
like Cranmer's, or Savon- 
arola's, 237; makes a 
supplementary statement, 
239; final process at Vi- 
enna, 240; record of con- 
demnation, 240-242; his 
execution described by an 
eyewitness, 242—244; char- 
acter and repute, 23, 217, 
245; writings put on the 
Index, 247; life not a fail- 
ure, 271. 
Hiibmaier, Writings of (those 
marked* have been quoted 
from freely; those marked 
** are given in full, or sub- 
stantially so) : 
* Appeal to Schaffhausen 

Council {op. 2), 82 
Brotherly Discipline {op. 

21), 190, 205 
^Christian Baptism of Be- 
lievers {op. 5), 114-117, 

Conversation of Balthazar 
Hiibmaier {op. 10), 180 

Dialogue between Baltha- 
zar Hiibmaier and Mas- 
ter Ulrich Zwingli {op. 
10), 119 

Earnest Plea {op. 2), 82 

** Eighteen Theses {op. 1), 
69-71 

*Form for Baptizing {op. 
19), 152, 202, 204, 
3 1 * 



328 



Index 



Hiibmaier — Continued. 

Form of the Supper {op. 

20), 152, 210 
^Freedom of the Will {op. 

23), 171, 178, 183, 186- 

188, 189, 193-197, 200 
Freedom of the Will — Sec- 
ond Book {op. 24), 152, 

196, 197 
** Fundamental Articles 

{op. 4), 89-91 
Ground and Reason {op. 

16), 189, 203, 205, 206 
**Heretics and Those Who 

Burn Them {op. 3), 84- 

88 
*On Infant Baptism {op. 

17), 120—122 
**Ow the Sword {op. 25), 

152, 170-176, 273-310 
Reason Why Every Man 

should Receive Baptism 

{op. 16), 151 
**Rechenschaft {op. 26), 

230-235 
*Short Apology {op. 13), 
49, 97, 98, 141, 204, 214 
*Table of Christian Doc- 
trine (Catechism, op. n), 
178, 183, 186-188, 189, 
*93~ 1 97, 200 
**Twelve Articles of Chris- 
tian Belief {op. 18), 130- 
136, 178, 185 
** Zurich Recantation, 138 

—140 
**Letter to Regensburg 

Council, 77-79 
**Letter to (Ecolampa- 
dius, 108 
Hiibmaier, Teachings of: 
Anabaptism, 204; anthro- 
pology, 190—198; antino- 
mianism, 189; atonement, 
198; ban, 212-214; bap- 
tism, 16, 202—205, 228; 
church, 206-208; "close 
communion , " 211; com- 



munism, 163; ecclesiology, 
202-213; election, 186; ef- 
fectual calling, 199; escha- 
tology, 216; exegesis, 182 
sq., 228, 298; fathers, au- 
thority of, 180; freedom of 
conscience, 217; hymns, 
214; images, 60-62; impu- 
tation, 198; infants, bap- 
tism of , 1 14 sq. ; infants, sal- 
vation of, 216; Lord's sup- 
per, 208-2 1 1 ; mass, 63-65 ; 
Scriptures, 180 sq.; sin, 
182, 192, 231; soteriology, 
198-201; theology, 184- 
190; will, 193-195, 231 

Hiigline, Elizabeth, married 
to Hiibmaier, 73; impris- 
oned at Zurich, 129; 
drowned at Vienna, 244 

Hus, John, Bohemian reform- 
er, at Constance, 53 ; influ- 
ence in Moravia, 148 

Hut, Hans, Anabaptist 
preacher, early history, 
159 ; doctrine of the Sword, 
160, 162; appears at Nik- 
olsburg, 160; acquaintance 
with Widemann, 163 ; com- 
pared to William Miller, 
165; specimen of his 
preaching, 166; impris- 
oned by Lichtensteins, 168; 
flight to Augsburg and 
death, 169 

Huter, Jacob, Anabaptist 
preacher, organizer of Mo- 
ravian communities, 250; 
death in Tyrol, 256; his 
protest to the Moravian 
nobles, 259 sq. 



I 



Immersion, by Grebel, 143; 
at Augsburg, 144; in Po- 
land, ib.; at Rhynsburg, 

!45 



Index 



329 



Images, Zwingli's attitude 
towards, 58; Hubmaier's 
speech against, 60 sq.; ban- 
ished from Waldshut, 73 

Immelen, Jacob, Swiss re- 
former, ' ' Dialogue ' ' with 
Hubmaier, 120—122 

Imputation of Adam's sin, 
198 

Infant baptism. See Bap- 
tism of infants, and Hiib- 
maier, Teachings of. 

Infants, salvation of, 216 

Ingolstadt, University of, 27 ; 
history, 33 ; old building of, 
34; certifies to Hubmaier's 
character, 49 

Ingolstadt, Church of the 
Virgin, 35 



Jews, expulsion from Regens- 
burg, 38-44 

John, Count Palatine, friend 
of Hubmaier, 37, 41, 49, 51 

Justification, Hubmaier's di- 
vergence from Luther on, 
201 



K 



Keller, Dr. Ludwig, State 
Archivist at Munster, on 
the Anabaptists, 9 

Kessler, Swiss reformer and 
historian, on Hubmaier, 

245 
Konigsfeld, Convent of, 51 



Leo Juda, Swiss reformer, at 
Hubmaier-Zwingli debate, 
125 ; on baptism of infants, 
127; debates with Hub- 
maier, 138 



Liberty, Christian, Hubmaier 
on, 217; case of Hans Hut, 
168 

Lichtenstein, Leonard, lord, 
of Nikolsburg, becomes 
Anabaptist, 151; summons 
Anabaptists to conference, 
167 ; expels the Schwertler, 
249; surrenders Hubmaier, 
221, 224, 225; not a perse- 
cutor, 265; fortunes of his 
house, 266 

Lichtenstein, John, becomes 
Anabaptist, 151 

Lichtenstein, Prince, Cath- 
olic and persecutor, 268 

Louis II., King of Bohemia, 
defeat at Mohacs, 149 

Lord's supper, Hubmaier's 
doctrine of, 208-211. See 
Mass 

Luther, Martin, his early de- 
mands for freedom, 6 ; atti- 
tude towards Anabaptists, 
7 ; his Theses, 50 ; Hub- 
maier's junior, 27; tracts, 
55 ; his marriage, 73 ; Hub- 
maier reckoned his follow- 
er, 79; on supremacy of 
Scripture, 92; his Wider 
Hans Wurst, 158; his Ad- 
dress to the Christian No- 
bility, 157; compared to 
Hubmaier, 153-157; pam- 
phlets against the peasants 
174; his doctrine of the 
will, 193, 196 

Lutherans in Nikolsburg, 148 

M 

Manichaean element in medi- 
aeval sects, 10 

Mantz, Felix, Anabaptist 
preacher, 106, 143 

Mass, Zwingli's ideas on, 62 ; 
Hubmaier's speech against 
63 sq.; his final rejection of, 
228, 235 



33o 



Index 



Maximilian II (Emperor, 
1 5 64-1 5 7 6), toleration of 
Anabaptists, 264 

Megander, Swiss reformer, 

125 

Melanchthon, compared to 
Hubmaier, 155 

Mennonites, practice of affu- 
sion, 145 

Miller, William, and Hans 
Hut, 165 

Mohacs, battle of, 149 

Montanists, 17 

Moravia, temporary religious 
freedom in, 146; influence 
of Hus there, 148; condi- 
tion of people, 149; perse- 
cution begins, 220; Diet 
banishes Anabaptists, 257; 
Diet permits bigamy, 270 

Moravians (Unitas Fratrum), 
survival of, 12 

Muller, Hans, insurgent lead- 
er, 95 

Miinzer, Thomas, leader of 
peasants, 97; not Hub- 
maier' s teacher, 105; re- 
buked by Grebel, 106; not 
an Anabaptist, 107; rela- 
tion to Hans Hut, 160, 162 

Miihlhausen and Thomas 
Miinzer, 160, 162; and 
peasants' rebellion, 106 

Myconius, Swiss reformer, 
debates with Hubmaier, 
138 



N 



Nikolsburg, Hubmaier goes 
to, 142; Anabaptists there 
before Hubmaier, 146; 
character of town, 147; 
the evangelicals, 150; the 
Lichtensteins, 151; con- 
troversies at, 158 sq.; Hut 
appears in, 161; trouble 
among Anabaptists of, 167, 



215; troubles renewed, 
248; the Schwertler ex- 
pelled, 249; falls to Diet- 
richstein family, 266 
Nobles, decline in power of, 

3 
Non-resistance, Anabaptist 

doctrine of, 3, 159, 160,162. 

See Hubmaier's tract On 

the Sword, Appendix. 
Niirnberg, Hut at, 159 



Oaths, Anabaptist repudia- 
tion of, 3 

CEcolampadius, Swiss reform- 
er, holds supremacy of 
Scriptures, 92; friend of 
Hubmaier, 99; "Dialogue" 
with Hubmaier, 120-122; 
on baptism of infants, 127 ; 
letter about Hubmaier, 
142 



Parousia, Anabaptist ideas 
of, 2 

Paulicians, 10 

Peasants, oppression of, 5 ; 
their uprising, 6; effect at 
Waldshut, 95; Twelve Ar- 
ticles of, 96, 241; Luther's 
attitude towards, 173 sq.; 
Hubmaier's relation to, 
222 

Peacock Hall, 31 

Persecution, of Anabaptists 
generally, 19, 20; of Jews 
at Regensburg, 38-44; of 
Anabaptists at Zurich, 124, 
129, 141, 144; of Ana- 
baptists in Moravia, 220, 

257 
Peter the Venerable, against 
the Petrobrusians, 1 1 



Index 



33i 



Petrobrusians, ideas of the 
church, 1 r ; connection 
with Anabaptists, 13 

Poland, immersion among 
Anabaptists of, 144 



R 



Radicals. See Zurich 

Reformation, and social 
changes, 3 ; reformers be- 
fore the, 13; relation of 
Anabaptists to, ib.; in 
Switzerland, 54; in Mo- 
ravia, 148 

Regensburg, importance of 
the city, 36; anti-Jewish 
agitation in, 38 sq.; pil- 
grimages to, 45 ; the Neup- 
farrkirche, 46; Albertus 
Magnus and his monastery, 
47; council testifies to 
Hubmaier's character, 49; 
makes him parting gift, 
50; recalls Hubmaier, 55; 
second parting gift, 56; 
invites Hubmaier to visit, 
77, 78; later visit of Hub- 
maier to, 142 

Rhynsburg, immersion in, 

145 

Ritual among Anabaptists, 
210 

Roublin, William, Anabap- 
tist preacher, converts 
Hubmaier to Anabaptism, 



St. Emeran, monastery at 

Regensburg, 47 
St. Gall, Hubmaier's visit to, 

57 

Savonarola compared to Hub- 
maier, 237 

Schaffhausen, Hubmaier's 
first residence at, 67; sec- 



ond residence there, 81 sq.; 
refuses to surrender Hiib- 
maier, 82; Hubmaier ap- 
peals to council of, 82, 83 

Scriptures, do not warrant 
infant baptism, 10, 16, 57; 
supremacy of, 16, 58, 66, 
89 sq., 180; supremacy ac- 
knowledged by Swiss re- 
formers, 92 ; inspiration of, 
16; interpretation of, 17, 
183 (see also Exegesis) 

Schwertler, at Nikolsburg, 
248; expelled, 249 

Socialism, among Anabap- 
tists, 172, 176, 215,. 250 sq. 
See also Community of 
Goods 

Sorg, Simprecht (Frowschau- 
er), Hubmaier's printer, 

153 

Soteriology, Hubmaier's doc- 
trine of, 198-201 

South Dakota, and colonies 
of Moravian Anabaptists, 
270 

Spitalmaier, Hans, reformer 
at Nikolsburg, 150 

Stabler at Nikolsburg, 249 

Sword, Hut's doctrine of, 
160, 162; Hubmaier's doc- 
trine summarised, 170- 
176; his treatise on, 273- 
310 

T 

Taxes, Anabaptist opposi- 
tion to, 3, 162 

Theology, or doctrine of God, 
184-190 

Theses, Luther's, 50; Hub- 
maier's eighteen, 69-71; 
his twenty-six, 89-91 

Thomas, Augustinian "read- 
er," 120 

Thirty Years' War, 268 

Trichotomy, taught by Hub- 
maier, 191 



332 



Index 



Turks, threatened invasions 
of, 148, 166, 248 



U 



Uliman, Wolfgang, Swiss An- 
abaptist, 143 

Unitarians among Anabap- 
tists, 184 

Unitas Fratrum, early his- 
tory, 148 



Vadianus (Watt), Swiss re- 
former, friend of Hub- 
maier, 57; his opinion of 
Hiibmaier, 245 

W 

Waldshut.town of, described, 
5 1 ; character of people, 52 ; 
Hiibmaier' s first pastor- 
ate, 51-54; second pastor- 
ate, 57; reforms of 1524, 
72; opposition of clergy, 
74; town summoned by 
Ferdinand, 74 sq. ; second 
summons, 79; Hiibmaier 
leaves, 81; last negotia- 
tions with Ferdinand, 94 
sq ; has sympathy of Zu- 
rich, 95; hundreds become 
Anabaptists, 112; visited 
by Grebel, 113; captured 
by Austrians, 122, 123; 
troubles at, charged against 
Hiibmaier, 222, 224 

Waldenses, idea of church, 
1 1 ; extent of, 12; connec- 
tion with Anabaptists, 13 

Water-tower at Zurich, Ana- 
baptist prison, 129 

Weissenburger, Wolfgang, 
Swiss reformer, 120 sq. 

Widemann, Jacob, Anabap- 



tist preacher, his commun- 
istic ideas, 162 ; joins forces 
with Hut, 163; continued 
activity at Nikolsburg, 
150, 176; in the socialistic 
communities, 251 

Will, Luther's doctrine of, 
193, 196; Hiibmaier's doc- 
trine of, 193-195 

Wyeland, William, of Re- 
gensburg, kindness to Hiib- 
maier, 49 



Zurich, city of, Hiibmaier's 
visit to, 5 7 ; second dispu- 
tation at, 57-65 ; reform in, 
66; conduct of Hiibmaier 
at, 74, 75; first disputa- 
tion at, 92 ; people divided, 
100; they study the Scrip- 
tures, 105 

Zurich, council of, decide for 
Zwingli, 65 ; adopt severe 
measures against Anabap- 
tists, 124; refuse to surren- 
der Hiibmaier, 128; im- 
prison Anabaptists, 129; 
banish Hiibmaier, 141; 
penalty for rebaptizing, 
144 

Zurich, radicals of, 58, 65, 92 ; 
demands on Zwingli, 10 1, 
103 ; Hiibmaier becomes 
their champion, no; their 
programme rejected by 
Zwingli, 103 ; their able 
leaders, in 

Zwingli, Huldreich, reformer, 
22; friend of Hiibmaier, 
57; relations to Zurich 
radicals, 58; attitude to- 
wards images, ib.; ideas 
about the mass, 62 ; policy 
as reformer, 66; marriage 
of, 73; influence on Hiib- 
maier, 74; avows supreme 



Index 



333 



Zwingli — Continued . 

authority of Scripture, 92; 
his perplexity in 1524, 100; 
believes radicals imprac- 
ticable, 103 ; his exegesis, 
104; doubts infant bap- 
tism, 127 ; resents course of 
Hubmaier, no; publishes 
his Baptism, A nabaptism 
and Infant Baptism, 113; 
attacked by Hubmaier, 
115, 117; his True, Thor- 
ough Reply, 118; his state- 
ments about Hubmaier, 
123; debate with Hub- 



maier, 125-128; his liber- 
erality, 128; sermon at 
Hubmaier's "recantation," 
129; confirms torture of 
Hubmaier, 137; procures 
Hubmaier's recantation, 
138; intercedes for Hub- 
maier, 142; his Refutation 
of the Tricks of Catabap- 
tists, 144; compared as 
leader and writer to Hub- 
maier, 153, 157; discredits 
Anabaptists, 164; his exe- 
gesis of "This is my body," 
208 



Heroes of the Reformation 



EDITED BY 



SAMUEL MACAULEY JACKSON, 

Professor of Church History, New York University. 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 

A Series of biographies of the leaders in the Protes- 
tant Reformation. 

The literary skill and the standing as scholars of the 
writers who have agreed to prepare these biographies 
will, it is believed, ensure for them a wide acceptance on 
the part not only of special students of the period but of 
the general reader. Full use will be made in them of the 
correspondence of their several subjects and of any other 
autobiographical material that may be available. The 
general reader will be pleased to find all these citations 
translated into English and the scholar to find them 
referred specifically to their source. The value of these 
volumes will be furthered by comprehensive literary and 
historical references and adequate indexes. 

It is, of course, the case that each one of the great 
teachers whose career is to be presented in this series 
looked at religious truth and at the problems of Chris- 
tianity from a somewhat different point of view. On this 
ground an important feature in each volume of the series 
will be a precise and comprehensive statement, given as 
nearly as practicable in the language of the original 
writer, of the essential points in his theology. 

It is planned that the narratives shall be not mere 
eulogies, but critical biographies ; and the defects of 
judgment or sins of omission or commission on the parts 
of the subjects will not be passed by or extenuated. On 
the other hand they will do full justice to the nobility of 
character and to the distinctive contribution to human 
progress made by each one of these great Protestant 
leaders of the Reformation period. The series will avoid 
the partisanship of writers like Merle d'Aubigne, and, in 
the opposite direction, of the group of which Johannes 
Janssen may be taken as a type. 



HEROES OF THE REFORMATION 



I.— MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546). The Hero of the Ref. 

ormation. By Henry Eyster Jacobs, D.D., LL.D. 

With 73 Illustrations. 12° $1.50 

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to a most important epoch of history. . . . Professor Jacobs is an exception- 
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himself of all the latest sources of information, and done the needful work of 
selection and condensation with excellent judgment and skill." — Christian 
Intelligencer. 

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estant Preceptor of Germany. By James William Richard, 
D.D. With 35 Illustrations. 12 . . . . $1.50 

" This work will be valued by the general reader who likes a well-told biog- 
raphy, and by the historian who is locking for facts and not opinions about facts, 
and by the wise teacher of the young who desires his pupils to read that which 
will at once instruct and inspire them with respect for what is great and honor- 
able. For these purposes, I believe no other work on Melanchthon can compare 
with this one." — Universalist Leader. 

Ill— DESIDERIUS ERASMUS (1467-1536). The Hu- 
manist in the Service of the Reformation. By Ephraim 
Emerton, Ph.D. With 36 Illustrations. 12 . . $1.50 

" Professor Emerton has done a thorough and skilful piece of work. . . . 
He has given his readers a graphic, spirited, well-balanced and trustworthy study, 
which contains all which most readers care to know, and in a manner which 
they will find acceptable. The book is a valuable addition to the series." — 
Congregationalist. 

IV. — THEODORE BEZA (1549-1605). The Counsellor of 
the French Reformation. By Henry Martyn Baird, Ph.D. 
With 24 Illustrations. 12° $1.50 

"No one could so well present the life of Beza in its true relations and in so 

g easing and popular a style as the accomplished historian of the Huguenots, 
r. Baird has not only exceptional familiarity with the period, but fullest sym- 
pathy with the hero, and accoidingly has produced a book of special interest and 
value." — Christian Intelligencer. 

V.— HULDREICH ZWINGLI (1484-1531). The Reformer 

of German Switzerland. By Samuel Macauley Jackson, 

LL.D. With 30 Illustrations, a Special Map, Battle Plan, and 

a Facsimile Letter. 12 ...... $2.00 

" It is notable as the first adequate life of Zwingli by an English-speaking 
author . . . portrays the man, the accomplished scholar, social reformer, ardent 
patriot, the theologian, so far in advance of his time as to stand alone in the faith 
that all infants would be saved. But Professor Jackson is no eulogist and 
exhibits the defects of Zwingli with unsparing hand, — defects which appear due 
to his time and circumstances, and far less serious in our judgment than some 
which lie at the door of those whose fame has overshadowed his." — The 
Outlook. 

Send for complete descriptive circular 
NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON 



HEROES OF THE REFORMATION 



VI.— THOMAS CRANMER and the English Reformation. 

1489-1556. By Albert Frederick Pollard, M.A., F.R.H.S. 

With 21 Illustrations. Crown Octavo. (By mail, $1.50.) 

Net $1.35 

"The life of the eminent martyr is here presented in what were its true re- 
lations. Mr. Pollard has fullest sympathy with his subject ; he indicates faults 
as well as virtues and presents a vital picture of the great prelate." — Detroit Free 
Press. 

_ " The work is accurate, scholarly, and free from partisan bias ... a rare 
virtue in English works on Cranmer. The events in which Cranmer had a share 
are recorded with fairness and accuracy." — The Lutheran. 

VII.— JOHN KNOX the Hero of the Scottish Reformation. 

By Henry Cowan, D.D. 

With 28 Illustrations and 2 Facsimile Letters. Crown Octavo. 

(Postage, 15 cents.) Net $1-35 

"We have nothing but hearty praise to give to Professor Cowan's book. It 
seems to us the ideal of a historical manual which, while perfectly adapted to the 
tastes of the general reader, is based on a genuine examination of the original 
authorities, and keeps fully in view the claims of the serious student who wishes 
to remain in touch with them at every point."— Glasgow Herald. 

For list of volumes in preparation see separate circular 



Heroes of the Nations. 



A Series of biographical studies of the lives and 
work of a number of representative historical char- 
acters about whom have gathered the great traditions 
of the Nations to which they belonged, and who have 
been accepted, in many instances, as types of the 
several National ideals. With the life of each 
typical character will be presented a picture of the 
National conditions surrounding him during his 
career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are 
recognized authorities on their several subjects, and, 
while thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present 
picturesque and dramatic "stories" of the Men and 
of the events connected with them. 

To the Life of each "Hero" will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, 
provided with maps and adequately illustrated ac- 
cording to the special requirements of the several 
subjects. 

Nos. 1-32, each. $1.50 

Half leather .......1.75 

No. 33 and following Nos., each 

(by mail $1.50, net 1.35) 
Half leather (by mail, $1.75) net 1.60 

For full list of volumes sec next page. 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS 



NELSON. By W. Clark Russell. 
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C- 

R. L. Fletcher. 
PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott. 
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By 

Thomas Hodgkin. 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By H. R. 

Fox-Bourne. 
JULIUS CESAR. By W. Warde 

Fowler. 
WYCLIF. By Lewis Sergeant. 
NAPOLEON. By W. O'Connor 

Morris. 
HENRY OF NAVARRE. By P. 

F. Willert. 

CICERO. By J. L. Strachan- 
Davidson. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Noah 
Brooks. 

PRINCE HENRY (OF PORTU- 
GAL) THE NAVIGATOR. 
By C. R. Beazley. 

JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER. 

By Alice Gardner. 
LOUIS XIV. By Arthur Hassall. 
CHARLES XII. By R. Nisbet 

Bain. 
LORENZO DE' MEDICI. By Ed- 
ward Armstrong. 
JEANNE D'ARC. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant. 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By 

Washington Irving. 
ROBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir 

Herbert Maxwell. 
HANNIBAL. By W. O'Connor 

Morris. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. By William 

Conant Church. 
ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry 

Alexander White. 
THE CID CAMPEADOR. By H. 

Butler Clarke. 
SALADIN. By Stanley Lane- 
Poole. 
BISMARCK. By J. W. Head- 

lam. 
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By 

Benjamin I. Wheeler. 
CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. 

Davis. 
OLIVER CROMWELL. By 

Charles Firth. 
RICHELIEU. By James B. Per- 

kins. 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. By Rob- 
ert Dunlop. 
SAINT LOUIS (Louis IX. of 

France). By Frederick Perry. 
LORD CHATHAM. By Walford 

Davis Green. 
OWEN GLYNDWR. By Arthur 

G. Bradley. $1.35 net. 
HENRY V. By Charles L. Kings- 
ford. $1.35 net. 
EDWARD I. By Edward Jenks. 

$1.35 net. 
AUGUSTUS C^SAR. By J. B 

Firth. $1.35 net. 
FREDERICK THE GREAT. By 

W. F. Reddaway. 
WELLINGTON. By W. O'Connor 

Morris 
CONST ANTINE THE GREAT. By 

J. B. Firth. 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS 



Other volumes in preparation are: 



MOLTKE. By Spencer Wilkinson. 
JUDAS MACCABEUS. By Israel 

Abrahams. 
SOBIESKI. By F. A. Pollard. 
ALFRED THE TRUTHTELLER. 

By Frederick Perry. 
FREDERICK II. By A. L. 

Smith. 
MARLBOROUGH. By C. W. C. 

Oman. 



RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED 
By T. A. Archer. 



WILLIAM THE SILENT 
Ruth Putnam. 



CHARLES THE 
Ruth Putnam. 



By 
BOLD. By 



GREGORY VII. By F. Urquhart. 
MAHOMET. By D. S. Margoliouth. 



New York— G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers— London 



H 153 82 



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